Aikido Security acquires Allseek and Haicker

GHENT, Belgium—Aikido Security has announced the acquisition of AI-native penetration testing platform developers Allseek and Haicker.

Together, they are transforming weeks-long pen tests into sub-hour automated assessments, enabling Aikido to capture the $6 billion penetration testing market, according to the company.

Traditional pen tests start at $10,000 and require weeks of scheduling, scoping, and waiting. They are also carried out approximately every six months - all while modern software ships daily - meaning organizations have limited visibility into their security posture. This has a major impact: the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Report shows over two-thirds of breaches exploited vulnerabilities that lingered unpatched for 90+ days despite security assessments.

"Conventional pen tests burn budgets and patience; merging with Aikido changes the game - instant, autonomous, and finally democratized for every security crew," said Wout Debaenst, co-founder and CEO of Allseek. "From manually pen-testing Aikido two years ago to partnering up and automating that entire pen-testing playbook, we’ve gone a long way, and we’re looking forward to taking things to another level." 

The acquisitions bring complementary DNA to Aikido's “no bulls**t” security platform:

Haicker – based in Lausanne, Switzerland - transforms elite human hacking into autonomous systems. Led by 19-year-old engineer Manaf Mhamdi Alaoui and 22-year-old Philippe Dourassov - officially the world's #1 competitive hacker after winning gold at WorldSkills 2024 - and backed by Project Europe and 20VC's Harry Stebbings, they have succeeded in making AI truly think like a hacker.

Based in Ghent, Belgium, Allseek builds AI agents that think like attackers, continuously mapping real exploit paths as infrastructure evolves. Founded by ethical hackers from EY and NVISO alongside AI researchers from Ghent University, they champion open-source security democratization.

"The reason Haicker was created was because we want to make it possible to detect all security issues and fix them, and AI pen testing is an essential part of that," said Dourassov. "But to accomplish our vision, we needed a platform, not just a single product. Aikido represents exactly what we were going for. A solution that protects applications against attackers on all fronts. By teaming up, we are getting another step closer to making 'unhackable' possible." 

Aikido's automated penetration testing technology works like having an entire team of specialized hackers attacking a company’s system 24/7. The AI agents divide and conquer - some specialize in mapping the environment, and others validate which vulnerabilities pose real threats.

Unlike traditional scanners that blindly check for known patterns and flood developers with false alarms, these agents understand what they are looking at. They adapt their tactics based on what they discover - just like a human pen tester would - chaining together vulnerabilities to find attack paths that basic tools miss. This brings real offensive security testing to the masses with on-demand testing at a fraction of the cost and wait time. 

"Nine in 10 companies believe penetration tests won’t need human involvement thanks to advances in AI. The market is ready for this transformation," noted Willem Delbare, founder and CEO of Aikido Security. "By combining Allseek and Haicker's autonomous testing capabilities with our existing platform, we're moving from annual security snapshots to continuous testing that keeps pace with the AI era. While AI agents handle the bulk of testing at scale, human experts can focus on creative, high-value vulnerabilities - the complex business logic flaws and sophisticated attack chains that require human intuition."

This marks Aikido's second and third major AI acquisition following Trag, as the company builds one of the industry's first unified platforms spanning code quality, application security, cloud security, and penetration testing, making enterprise-grade protection accessible to every developer.

Founded in late 2022, Aikido Security secures organizations' code, cloud, and runtime in one central system. The company serves 30,000+ organizations, including n8n, Niantic, Visma, Soundcloud, 8sleep, Montblanc, and GoCardless