Investments and insights.
$797M RAISED | 11 DEALS | 5 COUNTRIES
- Upwind has raised $300 million in Series C funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV.
- Cylake has raised $245 million through a convertible note.
- HiddenLayer has raised $100 million in a Series B round led by Delta-v Capital.
- Guardio has raised $40 million in new funding from Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport.
- Cymphony has launched with $30 million in funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund.
- Lasso has announced a $30 million funding round led by ClearSky.
- Huskeys has raised $27 million in Series A funding led by Blackstone Innovations Investments.
- Apate.AI has secured $8.15 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Lobby Capital.
- FAZE Security has emerged from stealth with $6 million in seed funding led by New Era Capital Partners and Lockstep.
- xorlab has raised €5 million (US$5.8 million) in funding led by existing investor Spicehaus Partners.
- AI Score has raised $5.4 million in seed funding led by Fuel Ventures.
Israeli cloud security company Upwind has raised $300 million in Series C funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV, with participation from Craft Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Greylock, Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, and Alta Park Capital. The funding brings the company's valuation to about $3.8 billion.
Sunnyvale, California-based AI-native cybersecurity platform Cylake has raised $245 million through a convertible note, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Picture Capital, and Redpoint Ventures. The company stated, "The new capital will support continued product development for Cylake’s complete, AI-native, fully sovereign cybersecurity platform, as well as ongoing team growth. The company is currently working with a cohort of industry-leading design partners to deliver a cyber platform for highly regulated commercial and government organizations, with a beta product expected by the end of 2026 and full general availability in 2027."
Austin-based agentic AI security company HiddenLayer has raised $100 million in a Series B round led by Delta-v Capital, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund, and Booz Allen Ventures. The company says it "will use the funding to deepen its enterprise platform, including its Agentic Runtime Security capabilities, and Agent Harness Security, a new solution that extends the Runtime Security module to secure AI coding agents at runtime and protect enterprises adopting autonomous coding agents into their stack."
Israeli consumer cybersecurity firm Guardio has raised $40 million in new funding from Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport, alongside existing investors ION Crossover Partners, Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Cerca Partners, and Emerge Ventures. The company says the funding brings its valuation to $1.1 billion. Guardio says it "will use the new funding to enhance and strengthen its suite of protection for consumers' total digital presence."
Israeli human risk security platform Cymphony has launched with $30 million in funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund. The company says the funding "will accelerate product development, expand the company's engineering and go-to-market teams, and help more enterprises securely operationalize AI at scale."
Israeli AI security startup Lasso has announced a $30 million funding round led by ClearSky, with participation from Entrée Capital, iAngels, Singtel Innov8, Mindset and Swish Data. The company says it will "use the funding to expand engineering, deepen its federal and regulated-industry work, and grow go-to-market in North America and Europe."
Israeli network edge security management startup Huskeys has raised $27 million in Series A funding led by Blackstone Innovations Investments, with participation from Merlin Ventures, Skinos Ventures, Zscaler Ventures, Okta Ventures, Bright Pixel Capital, SV Angel, and angel investors.
Apate.AI, an Australian company that uses conversational AI agents to disrupt fraud networks, has secured $8.15 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Lobby Capital, with participation from OIF Ventures, Investible, Concept Ventures, and Baobab Ventures. The company has also reincorporated in the US as a Delaware corporation. Apate stated, "With the new funding, Apate will deepen its platform and expand internationally. The company will open a new office in London next quarter to serve its European customers, and is building up its US presence to meet significant demand from telcos, financial institutions and government. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Peter Eckermann will relocate to the United States to lead that expansion across North America. Apate's technology and research team is expanding significantly and will remain Sydney-based."
Israeli offensive security orchestration company FAZE Security has emerged from stealth with $6 million in seed funding led by New Era Capital Partners and Lockstep.
Swiss email security provider xorlab has raised €5 million (US$5.8 million) led by existing investor Spicehaus Partners, with continued participation from Grapha Holding, EquityPitcher Ventures, and ZKB Start-up Finance. The company says the funding "will accelerate xorlab's expansion across Europe as the company builds the continent's leading sovereign email security platform, starting with DACH, Benelux, and the Nordics."
London-based AI governance company AI Score has raised $5.4 million in seed funding led by Fuel Ventures, with continued backing from founding investor GALLOS Technologies. The company says the funding "will be used to accelerate development of the platform and expand AI Score’s go-to-market capabilities."
Mergers and acquisitions.
6 DEALS | 3 COUNTRIES
- NVIDIA has agreed to acquire open-source AI repository Hugging Face for $12.9 billion.
- NetSPI has agreed to merge with Redwood City, California-based offensive security firm Synack.
- Spin.AI has acquired Israeli SaaS data security firm DoControl.
- Pistachio has acquired the technology behind Norwegian cybersecurity compliance provider Hugin.io.
- ClickHouse has acquired Austin-based security log management company RunReveal.
- Xpect Solutions has acquired identity and authentication security company Amivero.
NVIDIA has agreed to acquire open-source AI repository Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The company stated, "NVIDIA’s infrastructure, engineering, and global reach can help improve platform reliability, safety, model evaluation, inference and deployment capabilities, while preserving the open ecosystem that made Hugging Face foundational." The New York Times notes that the purchase "puts Nvidia’s deep pockets firmly on one side of a debate over how AI systems should be built." NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in a blog post that open-source models enable AI to "advance safely, strengthen cybersecurity and sovereignty, accelerate innovation, and reach factories, hospitals, farms, classrooms and Main Street businesses around the world."
Minneapolis-based penetration testing company NetSPI has agreed to merge with Redwood City, California-based offensive security firm Synack, forming a combined company worth over $200 million in revenue. The companies stated, "The combination brings together two of the premier expert-led offensive security organizations and integrates agentic AI across the combined platform to deliver continuous testing and validation at enterprise scale."
Palo Alto, California-based SaaS and AI security company Spin.AI has acquired Israeli SaaS data security firm DoControl. Spin stated, "The acquisition combines two complementary approaches to securing SaaS and AI environments into a single, broader security offering for both companies’ customers, and extends Spin.AI’s protection, which already spans more than 2,000 organizations worldwide, into new areas of SaaS and AI risk."
Oslo-based human risk management platform Pistachio has acquired the technology behind Norwegian cybersecurity compliance provider Hugin.io. The company says the acquisition brings "compliance management into the Pistachio platform."
San Francisco-based database management system ClickHouse has acquired Austin-based security log management company RunReveal. ClickHouse stated, "The work the RunReveal team has done on agentic investigation, including agents that hunt across sources, propose and tune detections, and carry an investigation toward a conclusion, is some of the most interesting we have seen built on ClickHouse. Investigations that took analysts hours need to happen in seconds. We expect that experience to inform how we support agentic analytics across the platform, for our own products and for the companies building theirs on top of us."
Virginia-based IT and cybersecurity contractor Xpect Solutions has acquired identity and authentication security company Amivero (also based in Virginia). Xpect stated, "The acquisition represents an intentional step in Xpect's strategy to build a solutions-oriented federal technology company serving national security missions across four key technical disciplines: enterprise IT, cybersecurity, digital modernization, and data and AI. Amivero accelerates that strategy by adding complementary capabilities and customer relationships."
Executive moves.
SSH Communications Security Corporation has named Lars Bell as its new CEO effective October 1st, following the retirement of its former CEO Rami Raulas. Bell currently serves as Chief Customer Officer at Omada A/S, where he served as Interim CEO from November 2025 to April 2026.
Trellix has appointed David Pieterse as COO - Go-To-Market and David Soto as Chief Information Security Officer. Pieterse most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer at Recorded Future, while Soto was previously Head of Infrastructure Security at Amazon.
Concentric AI has hired Gary Olson as Chief Revenue Officer and Will Saso as Vice President of Sales, Americas. Olson most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer at Sysdig, while Saso served as VP of Sales, Americas, at Sysdig.
OneTrust has named Stephanie Glenn as Chief Revenue Officer. Glenn most recently served as Executive Vice President of AMER Digital Sales at Salesforce.
Accenture has appointed Emma Chalwin as Chief Marketing Officer. Chalwin previously served as CMO at Workday, Inc.
Sekoia has hired Sara Verri as Chief Marketing Officer. Verri previously served as Senior Director, Global Demand Generation, at Nozomi Networks.
Armadin has appointed Frank Verdecanna as Chief Financial Officer. Verdecanna most recently served as Strategic Financial Advisor at Ballistic Ventures.
The FIDO Alliance has named Ronnie Manning as Chief Marketing Officer. Manning most recently served as Chief Brand Advocate at Yubico.
Proofpoint has named Brian Levey as Chief Legal Officer and Puja Jaspal as Chief People Officer. Levey most recently served as Chief Business Affairs & Chief Legal Officer at Upwork, while Jaspal previously served as Chief People Officer at Fastly.
NVIDIA has hired Saša Zdjelar as Chief Security Officer and Head of Product Security. Zdjelar previously served as Chief Trust Officer at ReversingLabs.
Glow has named Jake Martens and David Sledge as Chief Security Strategists. Martens most recently served as Field CISO for Upwind Security, while Sledge previously served as CISO at Secure Seed Capital.
Flare has hired James Carder as Chief Security Strategist. Carder previously served as Chief Information & Security Officer at Benevity.
Cisco has appointed Sunil Potti to lead the company's Security, Observability, and Data Platform teams. Potti most recently served as General Manager of Google Cloud Security.
SecurityBridge has named Dr. Tom Janoshalmi, Global Managing Partner at IBM Consulting, as chairman of the board.