Blackwall Raises $100 Million at $2.2 Billion Valuation to Tackle Bot and AI Traffic
TechCrunch reports that Blackwall has raised $100 million at a $2.2 billion valuation to continue developing security and filtering tools to help websites cope with the growing bot and AI traffic.
The company, formerly known as BotGuard, was founded in Estonia in 2019 by Nikita Rozenberg and Denis Prochko. Its flagship product, GateKeeper, is a reverse proxy that detects and filters malicious requests in real-time, including bots, crawlers, and attacks.
Previously, in March 2025, it completed a B round financing of approximately €45 million, led by Dawn Capital with participation from MMC Ventures. At that time, it was reported that the technology had been deployed through hosting and service provider partners on over 2.3 million websites and applications, primarily serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
This round of financing supports its ongoing efforts to build protective capabilities against automated and AI-driven traffic. The funds will be used for product development and to address changes in internet traffic structure.
Website operations face resource consumption and security pressures due to the increase in bot and AI traffic. Capital is flowing to companies providing filtering and protective tools, benefiting those websites and hosting service providers that need to manage non-human traffic.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Blackwall started from BotGuard, focusing on filtering malicious bots and automated traffic through reverse proxies, primarily reaching small and medium-sized enterprise customers via hosting and MSP channels. After the 2025 B round, it continues to expand its products and market, financing at a higher valuation. Its path has expanded from bot protection to addressing the growth of AI traffic.
In terms of capital flow, the funds are used for the ongoing development of security and filtering tools. The strategic motivation lies in the rising proportion of bots and AI in internet traffic, necessitating websites to identify and filter requests before they reach applications to control costs and risks.
Similar cases include other infrastructure companies providing network layer protection and traffic management. We are currently in a phase of significant increases in AI-driven automated traffic, with protection needs expanding from traditional attacks to larger-scale non-human traffic.
Essentially, this reflects a shift in technological substitution and infrastructure demand. AI has increased the scale and complexity of automated traffic, necessitating that websites and hosting service providers deploy filtering capabilities before the application layer to address resource consumption and security threats, leading capital to flow towards relevant tool providers.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Bot traffic is rising, and filtering tools are following suit with price increases.
- Traffic first goes through proxies before reaching websites.
- Small and medium enterprises cannot bear the burden, so hosting providers buy protection first.