Horizon3.ai hires Andres Botero to drive global push

Horizon3.ai has appointed former Rubrik marketing chief Andres Botero as Chief Marketing Officer, as the offensive security company steps up international expansion following a recent USD $100 million funding round.

Botero will oversee Horizon3.ai's global marketing organisation. He will focus on market positioning, demand generation and brand development as the San Francisco-based company seeks a stronger role in the fast-growing autonomous security segment.

The move brings another experienced public company executive into Horizon3.ai's senior team. The business has expanded rapidly on the back of demand for continuous security testing and adversarial exposure validation among large enterprises and government agencies.

Track record

Botero has more than two decades of experience in senior marketing roles at high-growth software companies. He most recently served as CMO at data security vendor Rubrik.

During his tenure at Rubrik, the company doubled subscription annual recurring revenue to more than USD $1 billion. Rubrik also completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RBRK.

Rubrik gained a top-right position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Backup and Data Protection Platforms during that period. The company repositioned itself from a backup and recovery provider to a cyber resilience specialist and reported billions of dollars in annual sales pipeline.

Before Rubrik, Botero served as Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at financial close automation provider BlackLine. BlackLine almost tripled its revenue during his five-year tenure.

He earlier held the role of CMO and head of Alliances and Channels at CallidusCloud. SAP acquired CallidusCloud in 2018 in a USD $2.5 billion transaction.

Leadership comments

Horizon3.ai's leadership framed the appointment as part of a broader push to scale the business and sharpen its position in offensive security.

"Andres is a proven marketing executive with a track record of creating and leading new market categories, driving exponential growth, and building world-class teams," said Snehal Antani, CEO and co-founder of Horizon3.ai. "His ability to transform companies into market leaders and deliver exceptional results will be instrumental as we continue to scale globally and redefine offensive security with our NodeZero platform."

Botero said Horizon3.ai's product and customer base presented an opportunity in a changing cyber risk environment.

"Horizon3.ai is uniquely positioned to transform the cybersecurity landscape by helping organizations identify and address their most exploitable risks," said Botero. "I'm excited to join this exceptional team and contribute to the company's mission of redefining offensive security while driving global growth and market leadership."

Offensive security focus

Horizon3.ai develops NodeZero, an autonomous offensive security platform that runs continuous penetration testing. The software identifies exploitable vulnerabilities and highlights weaknesses that attackers could chain together inside complex environments.

The company targets large enterprises in highly regulated and critical sectors. It says customers include 40% of the Fortune 10, global banks, major pharmaceutical and semiconductor manufacturers, critical infrastructure operators and organisations in the US defence industrial base.

NodeZero users run attack simulations that seek to mirror the tactics and paths of human adversaries. The platform generates findings that security and IT teams can use in remediation work and in testing the effectiveness of existing controls.

Growth milestones

Horizon3.ai has reported rapid growth in the past two years. It ranked third overall in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America.

The company also appeared in the Inc. 5000 rankings of high-growth private companies in the US. It describes itself as the fastest-growing cybersecurity company in that index.

Customer review platform Gartner Peer Insights recognised Horizon3.ai as a Customers' Choice in the October 2025 "Voice of the Customer" report for Adversarial Exposure Validation. The category focuses on tools that emulate attackers and measure real-world exposure across hybrid environments.

Horizon3.ai has gained traction in the public sector. The US Department of War's Platform One Solutions Marketplace assessed the company as "Awardable", which places NodeZero on an approved list of software offerings for government buyers.

That status allows US federal agencies to run pilots of autonomous penetration testing more quickly through Platform One. Security leaders in those agencies can then assess how continuous offensive testing fits alongside traditional assessment methods.

Scaling strategy

Botero joins Horizon3.ai after a period of rapid hiring in senior positions across the organisation. The leadership additions come in the wake of the Series D round led by venture capital firm NEA, which lifted the company's total funding significantly.

The company is investing in expansion of the NodeZero platform across more attack surfaces and infrastructure types. It is also pushing into new geographic markets and industry verticals as autonomous testing gains interest among security operations teams.

Horizon3.ai said it will continue to build on its early adoption in large enterprises and government as it seeks broader category recognition in autonomous security.