Manchester-based cybersecurity startup Cytix has raised $7 million in a Series A funding round led by Northern Gritstone as it prepares to expand in the United States and scale its platform for assessing security risks associated with rapidly changing software development.
The round also includes participation from existing investors Auriga Cyber Ventures and NPIF II, the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. The company plans to use the new funding to grow its engineering and commercial operations and support its expansion into the U.S. market.
Cytix was founded in 2022 by Ben Armstrong, Thomas Ballin and Matt Milan. The company has developed a platform designed to analyse software changes and help organisations determine the security testing required before changes are released.
The company’s approach focuses on the increasing use of artificial intelligence in software development. As developers use AI tools to produce and modify code, Cytix says security teams need ways to assess changes within their wider development context rather than relying only on conventional source-code scanning.
Cytix’s platform analyses information including tickets, pull requests, code differences, deployments and release metadata. It uses that information to assess changes, determine whether additional security attention is required and help organisations select an appropriate level of testing.
According to information published about the company, Cytix can direct lower-risk changes towards automated testing while changes requiring greater scrutiny can be escalated for manual security review or penetration testing. The platform also records evidence of testing and security decisions for governance and compliance purposes.
The company previously focused on continuous penetration testing before broadening its offering into what it describes as change risk management. Its earlier funding included a £1.6 million investment announced in September 2024, with backing from investors including NPIF II, Auriga Cyber Ventures and SFC Capital. Funding records for Cytix also list the 2024 round and describe the company as providing real-time analysis of code development to identify potential security flaws.
Cytix has also established partnerships with cybersecurity company NCC Group and professional services firm KPMG. NCC Group said in February 2026 that it had partnered with Cytix to provide a proactive security-assurance approach designed to keep pace with modern software development.
The new investment comes as Cytix seeks to build its presence beyond the UK. The company has identified the United States as a key expansion market, with the funding expected to support its commercial growth and continued development of its platform.
Northern Gritstone’s investment is notable because the investor was reportedly the party that approached Cytix with an unsolicited offer, rather than the company initiating a conventional fundraising process. That account has been reported in coverage of the funding round and has not been independently confirmed by Cytix in the information reviewed for this report.
Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson said the growth of AI-assisted software development has increased the need for security controls that can keep pace with faster software delivery. The investor said Cytix’s platform can help organisations concentrate security resources on software changes presenting greater risk.
Cytix’s founders bring backgrounds spanning cybersecurity, penetration testing and software engineering. Ben Armstrong has commercial experience in the cybersecurity sector and nearly a decade of experience in penetration testing, while Thomas Ballin has an ethical-hacking background and Matt Milan has worked in software engineering.
The company’s latest funding follows increasing investor interest in cybersecurity products designed for software developed or modified with AI assistance. Cytix is positioning its platform around the wider process of evaluating, testing and documenting software changes rather than solely identifying individual vulnerabilities in source code.
The company has not publicly disclosed a valuation for the Series A round in the information reviewed. Details including revenue, annual recurring revenue and the number of customers were also not disclosed.
Cytix’s latest financing gives the Manchester startup additional capital to develop its product and pursue international growth at a time when AI-assisted software development is becoming more widespread. Its immediate priorities are the continued expansion of its platform, growth of its team and entry into the U.S. market.
Sources: NCC Group; KPMG UK; Lancaster University’s North West Cyber Security Ecosystem Mapping; VentureRadar funding records.
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