Pistachio raises $7M Series A for cybersecurity awareness platform

Pistachio, an Oslo-based "automated awareness training platform" for cybersecurity, has raised $7M in a Series A round. The round is led by Walter Ventures, with participation from Idékapital, Angel Invest, MP Pensjon, and J12 Ventures, and will fuel the company’s rapid international expansion.

As cyber threats become more personalised and frequent - driven by increasingly sophisticated AI tools - organizations are rethinking their static, compliance-driven training models. By tailoring simulations and feedback based on individual user behavior and learning patterns, Pistachio ensures that security education is both relevant and retained.

With the fresh capital, Pistachio plans to further scale its AI capabilities, expand its engineering and sales teams, and deepen its footprint in key markets across Europe and North America. The company’s ambitions align with a broader movement within cybersecurity to shift from reactive solutions to continuous, intelligent risk mitigation.

Founded in 2019 and rebranded from CYBR in 2023, Pistachio helps businesses approach one of cybersecurity’s most persistent challenges: human error. Its AI-powered platform runs autonomously in the background, delivering personalised training and simulated cyberattacks to employees via email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. The goal is to embed continuous, real-time security awareness directly into the tools employees use daily.

The platform already has a presence in 16 countries, with users across 99 countries and over 600 companies on board, including institutions like the University of St Andrews and major insurance player The RiskPoint Group. A new office in Valencia, opened this month, marks the first step in Pistachio’s physical expansion across Europe, with North America next in line.

“Employees remain the most significant vulnerability in enterprise security, and ineffective training leaves organizations exposed to phishing attacks, social engineering, and other cyber threats,” says Joe Jones, co-founder and CEO of Pistachio.

“A staggering 40 percent of users fall for at least one of the first 15 phishing simulations through Pistachio. And with AI making it easier and cheaper to undertake social engineering attacks, we can no longer rely on ‘traditional’ security training, which has long been static and ineffective, failing to engage employees in meaningful ways. Pistachio was built to challenge that status quo, and this funding allows us to bring our vision to even more organizations globally.”