A startup’s first security audit is a known bottleneck. It is a manual, expensive process that often stalls product releases and complicates compliance with frameworks like ISO 27001. Rheono, a new company founded by Samir Abis, is betting that this process can be both automated and continuous, running automated and human-verified security assessments after every software release [Undercode Testing]. The goal is to make penetration testing move at the same speed as software development itself [Samir Abis - LinkedIn].
The Wedge: Penetration Testing as a Service
Rheono’s initial product is a penetration testing service priced at €3,500 for a 3-5 day engagement, which includes proof-of-concept findings and reporting formatted for NIS2 and ISO 27001 compliance [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. This is the company’s wedge into a startup’s operations. The pitch is straightforward: instead of an annual or quarterly manual audit, Rheono offers continuous testing that targets a company’s live external web and API surfaces [Undercode Testing]. For a funded startup needing to demonstrate security rigor to investors or enterprise customers, this shifts security from a periodic checkpoint to an integrated part of the deployment pipeline.
Automating the Back-Office Engine Room
The longer-term ambition extends beyond security. Rheono’s founder describes a platform that combines this testing with back-office automation, using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) over company data and autonomous agents to handle recurring decisions [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The target is the ad-hoc, spreadsheet-and-inbox-driven workflows that define early-stage company operations. By linking security posture to internal process automation, Rheono is attempting to own a critical, if unglamorous, layer of startup infrastructure.
Founder Pedigree and Early Backing
The company is a solo founder venture with the backing of global accelerator Antler, where Abis was an Entrepreneur in Residence earlier in 2026 [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. Abis’s technical background is in building high-scale systems, having worked on logistics platforms at Amazon handling over 600,000 packages per day and as a senior software engineer on an AI-powered ERP platform [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] [Samir Abis - LinkedIn]. This experience suggests a founder comfortable with the data pipeline and workflow automation challenges at Rheono’s core.
| Founder | Role | Prior Experience |
|---|---|---|
| Samir Abis | Founder & CEO | Amazon (logistics systems), Everest Systems (AI ERP), Antler EIR [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] [Samir Abis - LinkedIn] |
The Technical Breakdown and Scale Risks
The technical premise rests on two pillars: automated security tooling and workflow agents. The continuous penetration testing likely integrates off-the-shelf vulnerability scanners with custom orchestration to provide consistent reporting. The more complex system is the back-office automation, which requires deep integration into a company’s SaaS stack and data sources to function reliably. At a small scale, this can deliver clear efficiency gains. The open questions emerge at volume.
- Alert fatigue. Continuous testing generates a constant stream of findings. Distinguishing critical vulnerabilities from low-priority noise without overwhelming a small team is a classic problem in security operations.
- Integration depth. Automating complex back-office decisions, like vendor approvals or compliance checks, requires a nuanced understanding of business context that pure RAG over documents may not capture. Edge cases could force manual intervention, eroding the promised efficiency.
- Market timing. The product serves a specific niche: funded startups that are scaling operations and facing new compliance demands. This is a finite addressable market, and expansion into larger enterprises would require navigating more complex procurement and security review cycles.
Rheono’s bet is that the pain of manual security and operations is acute enough for startups to adopt a bundled solution early. Its success will depend on proving that its automated systems are not just faster, but also as reliable and insightful as the human-led processes they aim to replace. For now, it remains an early-stage proposition, its real-world efficacy yet to be demonstrated beyond the initial service offering.
Sources
- [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, 2026] Samir Abis LinkedIn profile summary | https://www.linkedin.com/in/samir-abis
- [Undercode Testing, 2026] Rheono’s Continuous Penetration Testing: Autonomous Agents, API Hunting, And NIS2-Ready Security | https://undercodetesting.com/rheonos-continuous-penetration-testing-autonomous-agents-api-hunting-and-nis2-ready-security-at-evo-frankfurt-video/
- [Samir Abis - LinkedIn, September 2026] Founder profile | https://www.linkedin.com/in/samir-abis