Estonia‑based Blackwall, a maker of web‑traffic security solutions for hosting providers, announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $100 million Series C round at a $2.2 billion valuation. The round was led by AVP and included participation from existing backers Dawn Capital, MMC Ventures and Tera Ventures. Executive chairman Roi Carthy told TechCrunch the new financing lifts the company’s valuation fourfold from its 2025 fundraising.
In recent years firms such as Cloudflare, Akamai, Imperva and Blackwall have found themselves on the front lines of a growing battle against DDoS attacks, indiscriminate scraping, botnet farms, malicious requests and, increasingly, swarms of rogue AI agents. The challenge also creates a lucrative opportunity to help hosting providers and websites filter unwanted traffic.
Rather than selling directly to end‑users, Blackwall follows a “channel” strategy. It partners with web‑hosting, managed‑service and cloud providers, delivering a suite of tools that these partners can brand, customize and resell to their own customers. Co‑founder and CEO Nikita Rozenberg explained that hosting companies can pick and choose security components, set their own pricing and share revenue with Blackwall. New customers start with a free tier that shows the volume of traffic and threats targeting their network; fees apply for any protective measures or tools they activate.
Blackwall’s portfolio includes threat intelligence, certificate management, DDoS mitigation and traffic routing. The company also analyzes incoming web traffic to separate legitimate visitors and approved AI agents from malicious bots and disruptive requests. Rozenberg said Blackwall employs digital fingerprinting to identify the software behind each request – for example Microsoft Office or Codex – and uses its own AI models at the customer’s edge to assess intent and behavior, distinguishing human‑driven actions from hostile bots.
Looking ahead, Rozenberg sees a major market emerging as AI agents begin to interact with and transact on websites on behalf of users. He predicts that systems will be needed to manage which agents gain access, under what conditions, and how they are authorized to make payments. Cloudflare’s AI Crawl Control already lets site owners allow, block or charge individual AI crawlers, but Rozenberg argues that Blackwall’s edge lies in empowering hosting providers to offer these traffic‑management services themselves, rather than ceding the customer relationship to another security vendor.
The fresh capital will be used to broaden Blackwall’s presence across North America, Europe, Asia‑Pacific and the Middle East, and to develop additional security tools for hosting, cloud and managed‑service providers.