SafeHill

SafeHill, formerly known as Tacticly, is a Chicago, Illinois-based cybersecurity company that develops SafeHill SecureIQ, a continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) platform. SecureIQ combines automated, AI-driven testing with validation by human ethical hackers to identify exploitable attack paths across internet-facing assets, cloud, on-premises and hybrid networks, identity systems, SaaS and endpoints. Rather than producing vulnerability lists ranked by generic severity, the product groups related weaknesses into exploit sequences and prioritizes them by reachability, business impact and evidence of active exploitation.

Core capabilities include external and internal attack surface monitoring and continuous asset discovery; AI-human hybrid continuous penetration testing in place of point-in-time engagements; an attack path prioritization engine; real-time threat intelligence monitoring that incorporates exploited-in-the-wild signals and infostealer-sourced credential leak data; compliance mapping to frameworks such as PCI-DSS, CMMC, NIST and ISO 27001; and remediation orchestration that produces Jira- and Slack-ready tasks. Deliverables emphasize proof of exploitability (screenshots, steps and artifacts), human-reviewed remediation plans, and retest confirmation that an attack path has been closed.

Alongside the platform, SafeHill positions itself as a CTEM services partner, offering help standing up or refining CTEM programs, human-in-the-loop offensive intelligence, and translation of platform findings into playbooks and executive-facing exposure reporting. The company also produces the "Hacker & the Fed" podcast.

Founding story

The founders met at Rhino Security Labs and previously cofounded and exited Chambers Key Cybersecurity, which Mike Pena led through its 2021 acquisition by Palo Alto-based VAR/MSSP Alacrinet Consulting Services. Having experienced the limits of scaling penetration testing through consulting, acquisition and enterprise delivery, and having helped bring automation-first adversary simulation tools to market, they founded the company on the premise that customers still struggled with piled-up findings, missing context and environments that changed faster than teams could reassess. The team built its automated penetration testing software during the Techstars Chicago program.

Business model

SafeHill sells its SecureIQ threat exposure management platform to enterprises, combined with a human-led CTEM service layer in which its ethical hackers validate findings and act as an extension of the customer's security team. The company lists pricing on its website and references a channel partner program and technology integration partnerships.

Platform-based offering for enterprise security teams, paired with human-delivered penetration testing and CTEM advisory engagements; the website directs prospects to published pricing and to discussions of security assessments or pentests.

Traction

Customer testimonials come from the CTO of Bandsintown, the CISO of First Medical and a cybersecurity manager at Alpine Health, with Bandsintown describing a progression from a penetration testing engagement to platform adoption and CTEM program design. Early customers include small and mid-sized academic institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities. The pre-seed round was described by the company as oversubscribed.

Latest developments

Following the September 2025 launch and $2.6 million pre-seed round, SafeHill said it would expand its engineering team, enhance AI-assisted ethical hacking capabilities, deepen partnerships with enterprise security teams, and extend SecureIQ's real-time monitoring and compliance-mapping features. A subsequent company post describes work on an internal AI system called Mastermind.