About SafeHill
Built by offensive experts
to put defenders ahead.
SafeHill was founded on the belief that security teams don’t need more automated noise. They need better insight, grounded in human expertise.
SafeHill’s Mission
Our mission is to make proactive security real. By combining AI with human ethical hackers, we help teams see real exposure, understand what matters, and act before attackers do. Less guessing. Less clutter. More clarity.
How We Empower Customers
Built to help teams get ahead, prioritize what matters, and bring alignment across the business.
Take a Proactive Stance
We help teams get ahead of risk so they can spend less time reacting and more time building a stronger, more resilient security practice.
Turn Noise into Action
We help teams move beyond alert fatigue, zero in on what matters most, and focus with confidence on the risks that deserve attention now.
Bring Clarity to Security
We help teams bring clarity to security so it’s easier to understand, easier to communicate, and easier to rally around across the business.
About SafeHill
SafeHill is a Chicago-based cybersecurity company built in response to a broken industry tradeoff. For too long, security teams have been forced to choose between expensive, human-led services and automation-first tools that get them close, but stops short of real confidence. We believe the future of cybersecurity is not AI alone or services alone. It’s AI plus humans in the loop, working together to help teams stay ahead of risk.
That belief came from experience. We lived the pentest scaling problem from the inside through consulting, acquisition, and enterprise delivery, and we helped bring automation-first adversary simulation tools to market. Despite new tech, we kept seeing customers struggle with the same problem over and over again: findings piled up, context went missing, and the environment changed faster than teams could reassess.
SafeHill is our answer: we validate real attack paths, prioritize what’s actually exploitable based on real-world context, and bring human expertise in where it matters most. We built SecureIQ to restore the point: continuity, validation, and decision clarity – without drowning teams in noise.
Meet the Founders
Offensive security experts + serial cybersecurity founders
Mike Pena
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Mike Pena is a first-generation Cuban-American and three-time Hodgkin lymphoma survivor. He went from learning English in second grade to a career on Wall Street, then into building cybersecurity startups. After the 2008 financial crisis he shifted from equity trading to advising startups and government agencies on cyber risk, eventually joining Rhino Security Labs where he met co-founders Hector Monsegur and Nick Gonzalez and built their first company together, Chambers Key Cybersecurity. At SafeHill, Mike leads with a focus on resilience, customer trust, and turning offensive expertise into a solution that feels like an extension of a customer’s own security team rather than just another vendor.
Hector Monsegur
Co-Founder & Chief Research Officer
Hector Monsegur, the infamous hacker formally known as “Sabu,” was the mastermind behind the hacker group LulzSec, an offshoot of Anonymous. He’s credited with the high-profile breaches of Sony Pictures, PBS, Fox.com, and multiple government systems. Today, Hector is an author, adjunct professor, keynote speaker, and Chief Research Officer at SafeHill. In his role at SafeHill, he helps organizations neutralize the same kinds of threats he once launched. His raw insider perspective, unmatched technical expertise, and riveting personal story make him a commanding presence on stage, in classrooms, and across major media outlets.
Nicholas Gonzalez
Co-Founder & Chief Research Officer
Nick Gonzalez is a Cuban-American technologist and seasoned sales engineer who spent more than a decade helping organizations evaluate and deploy complex security tools before co-founding SafeHill. His time in technical sales gave him firsthand insight into where traditional security products fall short for real customers, especially around operationalizing penetration testing and exposure data. Nick met Mike and Hector at Rhino Security Labs, co-founded and exited Chambers Key Cybersecurity with them, and then joined forces again to build SafeHill. As Chief Revenue Officer he focuses on long-term customer relationships, clear business value, and ensuring that SafeHill’s offerings are tightly aligned with the day-to-day pressures that security and risk leaders face.
Meet Our Advisors
Meet Our Investors
Announcing our $2.6 million pre-seed funding round led by Mucker Capital and Chingona Ventures .
SafeHill recently raised an oversubscribed 2.6 million dollar pre-seed round to accelerate development of the SecureIQ platform and expand our engineering and customer success teams. The round was led by experienced early-stage investors who share our belief that the future of cybersecurity is AI plus humans in the loop.
Mucker Capital is a venture firm that provides pre-seed, Seed, and Series A capital plus hands-on guidance to startups across the U.S., Canada, and beyond.
Chingona Ventures is a Chicago-based pre-seed venture firm that invests in the next generation of bold founders building in overlooked, high-growth markets.
Techstars is a global startup accelerator and early-stage investor that helps founders grow through funding, mentorship, and access to its worldwide network.
Chicago Early Growth Ventures is a Chicago-based early-stage investment firm that backs seed-stage startups across sectors, with a strong connection to the Chicago startup ecosystem and beyond.
The Source is a South Florida innovation platform that connects capital, institutions, founders, and strategic partners to drive regional growth through ecosystem development and high-impact initiatives.
Virginia Union University is a historic HBCU that partners and invests in emerging technology within fintech, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
Eddie Lou is an angel investor, two-time founder, and former VC who backs exceptional early-stage founders as a hands-on partner, with investments in more than 50 startups like Cameo, Chowbus, and Factor.
Meet Our Team
Andy Sok
VP of Product
Prev: Alacrinet
Ibrahim Karajic
VP of IT Infrastructure
Prev: Alacrinet
Truong Tran
Director, Customer Success
Prev: Alacrinet
Alanis Romero
Operations Manager
Prev: IntelliGuards
Daniela Applegate
Marketing Manager
Prev: rThreat
Taimoor Atesh
Lead Penetration Tester
Prev: Alacrinet
Diego Briceno
Lead Penetration Tester
Prev: Alacrinet
Armin Karajic
Penetration Tester
Prev: Alacrinet
Trevor Baines
Penetration Tester
Prev: Guidepoint Security
Jonathan Zambo
Penetration Tester
Prev: IntelliGuards
Anthony Cepero
Penetration Tester
Prev: Scientific Games
Join the next chapter of the SafeHill story
SafeHill exists to give defenders an advantage, combining offensive expertise, AI powered Threat Exposure Management, and a CTEM mindset into one platform and services partnership. Whether you are a CISO looking for a better way to understand your real attack paths, an engineering leader who is tired of noisy reports, or a security professional who wants to work on meaningful problems, we would love to connect.