LONDON (AP) — Substitute Tom Watson scored a stoppage-time winner as Sunderland rallied to beat Sheffield United 2-1 in the Championship playoff final and earn promotion to the Premier League on Saturday.
Watson struck from the edge of the penalty area five minutes into injury time after Kieffer Moore gave the ball away, and then slid on his knees with his jersey off in celebration at Wembley Stadium.
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Sunderland's Eliezer Mayenda celebrates scoring his side's first goal during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Luke O'Nien receives treatment for an injury during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (Ben Whitley/PA via AP)
Sheffield United's Tyrese Campbell scores his side's first goal of the game during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Luke O'Nien, Tom Watson and Harrison Jones celebrate following the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Tom Watson celebrates scoring his side's second goal during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
Sunderland defender Luke O’Nien, who needed oxygen treatment early and went off after hurting his right shoulder, joined in the celebrations with his arm in a sling.
Sunderland joins Leeds and Burnley in getting promoted from the second tier to the money-spinning top tier.
The playoff final is the most lucrative one-off match in world soccer, with Sunderland — last in the Premier League in 2017 — in line to get an estimated revenue uplift of around 200 million pounds ($260 million) in matchday, broadcast and commercial revenue.
“Honestly it's incredible, I don't think I can put it into words,” Sunderland goalkeeper Anthony Patterson told broadcaster Sky. "It's not even sunk in what's happening but I'm gonna enjoy every moment now.”
Striker Tyrese Campbell gave Sheffield United the lead and his side dominated the first half. Campbell is the son of former Arsenal and Everton striker Kevin Campbell, who died last year.
Spanish forward Eliezer Mayenda equalized in the 76th for Sunderland, three minutes after Sunderland coach Régis Le Bris sent on Watson.
It was a heart-breaking defeat for United, which was relegated from the Premier League last season after winning just three games and conceding 104 goals.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Sunderland's Eliezer Mayenda celebrates scoring his side's first goal during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Luke O'Nien receives treatment for an injury during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (Ben Whitley/PA via AP)
Sheffield United's Tyrese Campbell scores his side's first goal of the game during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Luke O'Nien, Tom Watson and Harrison Jones celebrate following the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Sunderland's Tom Watson celebrates scoring his side's second goal during the Sky Bet Championship play off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland, at Wembley Stadium, London, Saturday May 24, 2025. (John Walton/PA via AP)
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 11, 2026--
Torq, the established Agentic AI security operations pioneer, today announced it has closed a massive $140 million Series D funding round, propelling its valuation to $1.2 billion and total funding to $332M.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260112510774/en/
Led by Merlin Ventures —a leading cybersecurity fund renowned for its deep access to the U.S. commercial and Public Sector markets—with participation from all existing investors, including Evolution Equity Partners, Notable Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Ventures Partners, and Greenfield Partners, this capital injection is a definitive investment in the future of security. Torq is driving the industry’s critical shift: the complete transformation of the Security Operations Center (SOC) through battle-tested AI Agents at enterprise scale.
The new funds will accelerate the adoption of the Torq AI SOC Platform, the only end-to-end solution built on the pillars of advanced Hyperautomation, Alert Triage, and Fatigue Reduction to deliver full operational autonomy for global enterprises and government agencies.
“Torq is redefining security operations,” said Shay Michel, Managing Partner, Merlin Ventures. “They’ve fused automation and human judgment into a new AI SOC Platform built for asymmetric threats and real-world scale. This is why Merlin is leading the investment. Our focus now is speed—accelerating go-to-market, expanding across commercial and government markets, and building the next global category leader in AI security operations.”
Torq Delivers On the Promise of the AI SOC
“This funding accelerates our mission to define and dominate the AI SOC market. We are moving far beyond the constraints of legacy SOAR and SIEM, harnessing the Agentic AI Era to deliver outcomes our customers rely on,” said Ofer Smadari, CEO and co-founder, Torq. “Global enterprise adoption of our AI SOC Platform has validated our vision for the future of security operations. We have achieved tremendous revenue growth, with Fortune 100 customers adopting our AI Agents in their SOCs for everything from investigation to response. Our partnership with Merlin Ventures is the definitive signal that Torq is now ready to scale this massive customer success into the high-stakes Federal and Public Sector markets.”
The Growth Engine: Massive AI Agent Adoption
The primary driver behind Torq’s 2025 growth is the unprecedented adoption of its AI Agents across its global customer base. Unlike legacy security tools that require extensive professional services, Torq AI Agents are designed for self-service, enabling security teams to build and deploy sophisticated agents with minimal effort.
Today, Torq AI Agents are deeply embedded in the daily operations of Fortune 500 SOCs, managing millions of complex security tasks autonomously. This "bottom-up" adoption has transformed Torq from a specialized tool into the primary platform for the modern SOC.
“Torq delivers fast, measurable value to Valvoline’s SOC and eliminates the manual tasks that once consumed our analysts’ time,” said Corey Kaemming, CISO, Valvoline. “Within 48 hours of deployment, our team was using Torq’s AI SOC Platform for automating phishing triage, accelerating alert handling, and reducing response times across the board. The results were transformative. Analysts reclaimed hours of time, containment actions became automatic, and the security team evolved from reactive responders to proactive strategists. Torq took the vision that was in our heads and actually put it into practice. My team is in love with Torq.”
Strategic Expansion Into the Federal Market
Torq's partnership with lead investor Merlin Ventures has accelerated Torq’s traction within the U.S. Federal and Public Sector markets. With nearly 30 years of success bringing technologies to the U.S. government market, Merlin Ventures provides Torq with the strategic support and deep government relationships necessary to navigate complex compliance requirements, including FedRAMP, and rapidly scale the Torq AI SOC Platform to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure.
Explosive Growth and Enterprise Maturity Validation
The Series D affirms Torq’s proven market traction and maturity. In 2025 alone, the company delivered significant customer expansion, demonstrating that the Torq AI SOC Platform is built for complex, multinational security environments. Torq now protects hundreds of multinational enterprises, including Marriott, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Uber, and Virgin Atlantic.
Torq Leads the Shift To AI Agents: Autonomous Investigations and Advanced Automation
Torq is driving this transformation through its singular Agentic AI foundation. In 2025, Torq solidified its market lead by delivering the most advanced multi-agent security capabilities, backed by the strategic acquisition of RevRod. This proven platform empowers SOC teams through two critical product pillars:
“We’re always innovating our security operations approach at Virgin Atlantic and the Torq AI SOC Platform is driving significant benefits for us,” said John White, CISO, Virgin Atlantic. “Today, innovation stems from an AI-first approach, which Torq excels at. Torq is making our security operations simpler and more efficient, and providing us with complete coverage across our security stack. Torq is now our umbrella platform.”
About Torq
Torq is transforming cybersecurity with the Torq AI SOC platform. Torq empowers enterprises to instantly and precisely detect and respond to security events at scale. Torq’s customer base includes major multinational enterprise customers, including Abnormal Security, Armis, Check Point Security, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inditex (Zara, Bershka, and Pull & Bear), Informatica, Kyocera, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Telefonica, Valvoline, Virgin Atlantic, and Wiz.
About Merlin Ventures
Merlin Ventures is the venture capital affiliate of Merlin Group, a network of companies with nearly 30 years of success bringing technologies to the U.S. government market. Merlin Ventures rapidly scales visionary companies and introduces disruptive solutions designed to help enterprises address today's most critical cybersecurity challenges. Its unique business model combines robust infrastructure and capital, technical advisory and engineering advisory, market readiness acceleration, and deep-rooted government and industry relationships that enable its portfolio to rapidly grow and scale. Learn more at merlin.vc.
Torq Secures $140M Series D at $1.2B Valuation to Lead the AI SOC and Agentic AI Era
