SafeHill opens Tampa Bay research office to expand AI security work

SafeHill plans to open a Tampa Bay office to expand research on AI-driven threat exposure management as software development shifts toward AI-generated code. The move strengthens the company’s push into Tampa’s growing CyberBay ecosystem and backs its SecureIQ platform for finding and validating real exploits.

Why it matters: - SafeHill is betting that AI-generated code is creating a new security gap, and the Tampa Bay office is meant to accelerate research on how to find real exploits before attackers do. - The expansion also puts SafeHill inside Tampa’s CyberBay cluster, where cybersecurity companies, talent pipelines, and capital are increasingly concentrated.

What happened: - SafeHill announced plans to open a Tampa Bay office for its research operations. - The company said the office will deepen its roots in Tampa’s “CyberBay” cybersecurity hub. - SafeHill co-founder and Chief Research Officer Hector “Sabu” Monsegur will lead the research team. - CEO and co-founder Mike Pena said Tampa was the company’s first choice for the expansion.

The details: - SafeHill describes itself as an AI-powered threat exposure management company. - The company’s flagship platform, SecureIQ, continuously discovers attack paths and validates real exploits. - SecureIQ uses a hybrid model that pairs agentic AI with human ethical hackers. - SafeHill said its dual-agent architecture includes Helix, which tests AI- and human-generated code for exploitable issues, and Sentinel, which validates findings with evidence-backed proof. - The company says the approach is designed to cut through false positives common in legacy security tools. - SafeHill said its Tampa office will serve as the home base for advancing that research. - The company pointed to Veracode’s 2025 GenAI Code Security Report, which found 45% of AI-generated code introduces OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and contains 2.74x more vulnerabilities than human-written code. - SafeHill’s public presence includes the company’s LinkedIn page.

Between the lines: - SafeHill is positioning itself around “vibe coding,” the trend of building software with AI assistance, which is making security review more urgent and more complex. - The Tampa move also signals confidence that in-person collaboration still matters for advanced cybersecurity research, even as the company’s core product relies on AI. - Tampa’s CyberBay brand is becoming a competitive recruiting and partnership advantage for firms that want access to established operators and a broader security ecosystem.

What’s next: - SafeHill said the Tampa research office will support continued development of Helix, Sentinel, and future R&D projects. - The company plans to use the office as a base for expanding its research work as it grows its AI-powered platform. - SafeHill will join a Tampa cybersecurity market anchored by companies including A-LIGN, KnowBe4, ReliaQuest and Rapid7.

The bottom line: - SafeHill is expanding into Tampa to scale a research model built for the AI-generated code era, while tapping into one of the country’s fastest-growing cybersecurity hubs.