TENEX Appoints former Charles Schwab CISO Bashar Abouseido as President; Ranked #1 fastest-growing cybersecurity company
TENEX.AI, the AI SOC Company transforming security operations, today announced a $250M Series B round led by Crosspoint Capital Partners.
The new capital will accelerate TENEX’s global expansion and significantly scale the human expertise behind its AI-native managed detection and response (MDR) service, expanding the elite team of defenders and engineers delivering cybersecurity outcomes that no product-only approach can match. The TENEX.AI platform enables AI-driven triage, investigation, hunting, and response to threats, in under a minute – with 100% alert coverage, with human analysts governing every decision and accountable for every outcome.
“Tenex has reimagined the managed security services industry and built something differentiated: an AI-native platform with elite human expertise to protect enterprises at scale. The company stops threats with the speed needed to defend an AI-enabled advisory and is delivering that value with an excellent financial model,” said Greg Clark, Managing Partner at Crosspoint Capital Partners. “TENEX provides better gross margins than traditional software, where customers buy an outcome like traditional managed service offerings. With TENEX, there are no trapped resources or associated incremental headcount per customer. The financial opportunity in the AI enablement comes from the market’s underestimation of how AI can transform the value of services industries. The MDR market is massive and can now operate profitably. Crosspoint Capital is excited about this backdrop and the opportunity at TENEX.”
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“Everyone in this industry is talking about AI. Everyone else is bolting AI onto the same services and platforms that have been failing enterprises for years. We started over – the only AI SOC company led by operators who’ve done this before, with founding engineers from the hyperscalers and the leading AI labs. Not bolted on. Not borrowed. Native,” said Eric Foster, Founder and CEO of TENEX. “This funding lets us do what we set out to do at scale: fight cybercrime by making elite defense accessible to every organization. AI has opened the door to the best human work this industry has ever seen, and we’re hiring, building, and expanding globally to prove it.”
Since its founding, TENEX has grown by 318% year‑over‑year, a trajectory that recently earned the company the #1 spot on the 2026 Cyber 150: The Fastest‑Growing Cybersecurity Companies by IT‑Harvest. This momentum reflects the market’s accelerating shift toward AI‑accelerated, human‑led MDR, and TENEX’s ability to deliver outcomes that outpace attackers.
“Most of the MDR market is still trying to bolt AI onto architectures that were never designed for it,” said Zach Sivertson, Managing Director at Crosspoint Capital Partners. “TENEX went back to first principles and built natively — and the growth shows what that difference means in the market. Enterprises are voting with their budgets, and we’re proud to back the team that’s earning that trust.”
The company also announces the appointment of veteran cybersecurity executive Bashar Abouseido as President. He brings more than two decades of enterprise leadership to the role, most recently serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Charles Schwab, one of the world’s largest and most advanced financial services firms.
“Enterprise security teams are being asked to do more with the same resources against threats that grow more sophisticated every quarter,” said Bashar Abouseido, President of TENEX. “That equation doesn’t work without AI. TENEX has built the platform that changes that equation – combining AI-native detection with experienced human judgment at a scale I haven’t seen elsewhere. That’s why I’m here.”
“Tenex represents a shift from alert-driven workflows to autonomous, intelligence-led operations. What’s remarkable is how quickly customers are adopting this model and seeing measurable results,” said Elias “Lou” Manousos, Chairman of TENEX. “This round, led by Crosspoint, gives Tenex the fuel to define this category and scale what we believe will become a foundational platform for modern security.”
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