Leading Israeli StartupsTop 5 Israeli high-tech fundraising rounds in the first half of 2024
Leading Israeli Startups
Top 5 Israeli high-tech fundraising rounds in the first half of 2024
Wiz, Axonius, Island, WEKA, and Silverfort all caught our eyes with their large fundraising announcements this year
This year has seen some large fundraising announcements from Israeli companies, despite challenging economic times following the war with Hamas. Here, we break down some of the most significant companies.
Wiz
Sector: Cyber | Established: 2020 | Founders: Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik | Funding: $1.9 billion from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Thrive Capital, Greylock, Wellington Management, Cyberstarts, Greenoaks, Howard Schultz, Index Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.
Cloud security decacorn Wiz announced that it had raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation in May, bringing the company’s total funding to $1.9 billion. The Wiz platform scans every layer of the cloud to provide complete visibility and uses its Security Graph's context to eliminate the noise and surface the risks that matter most. Customers can then quickly identify, prioritize, and remove risks across their cloud.
Wiz has expanded its cloud security platform (CSPM & CNAPP) during 2022, adding modules for Container and Kubernetes security, Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), and Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), enabling organizations to further consolidate their cloud security program to a single platform. Wiz was founded in March 2020 by Rappaport, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP Product Yinon Costica, and VP R&D Roy Reznik. The biggest funding round in Israeli tech history comes on the heels of the acquisition of Israeli startup Gem Security, a Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) provider.
Axonius
Sector: Cyber | Established: 2017 | Founders: Dean Sysman, Ofri Shur, and Avidor Bartov | Funding: $595 million from Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Stripes
Axonius, which develops solutions for cybersecurity asset management and SaaS management, announced in March that it had secured $200 million in a Series E extension funding round led by Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Existing investor Stripes also participated.
Founded in New York City in 2017 by Israelis Dean Sysman (CEO), Ofri Shur (CTO), and Avidor Bartov (Chief Architect), Axonius' software helps IT and security teams manage their IT environments, including devices, users, software and cloud services, so they can mitigate threats and manage security risks. The startup said it crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in 2023, with its customer base now including more than a dozen of the Fortune 500 and global organizations such as Schneider Electric, News Corp, and Anheuser-Busch InBev. The company also supports four of the five major U.S. Department of Defense service agencies.
Island
Sector: Cyber | Established: 2020 | Founders: Mike Fey and Dan Amiga | Funding: $487 million from Coatue, Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, Stripes, Georgian, and Prysm Capital.
Cybersecurity startup Island, which develops a secure enterprise browser, raised $175 million in a Series D financing round in April, doubling its valuation to $3 billion. Island, which raised $100 million in a Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation in 2023, took its total funding to date to $487 million.
The Island Enterprise Browser aims to provide enterprises with advanced security, IT and network controls, data protections, application access and advanced productivity features in a browsing experience. Using the Island Enterprise Browser, security teams fully control the last mile, from basic protections such as copy, paste, download, upload, and screenshot capture, to more advanced security demands such as data redaction, watermarking and multi-factor authentication insertion.
WEKA
Sector: AI | Established: 2013 | Founders: Liran Zvibel, Omri Palmon and Maor Ben Dayan | Funding: $375 million from Valor Equity Partners, Generation Investment Management, NVIDIA, Atreides Management, 10D, Hitachi Ventures, Ibex Investors, Key1 Capital, Lumir Ventures, MoreTech Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures
AI-native data platform WekaIO (WEKA) raised $140 million in a Series E funding round in May consisting of a combined primary and secondary transaction led by Valor Equity Partners, a previous investor in the company. WEKA has developed a data platform for AI infrastructure with a cloud and AI-native architecture that provides data portability across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments.
The round brought WEKA’s post-money valuation to $1.6 billion, up from $750 million in its previous funding round in November 2022. The secondary portion of the round is estimated at $40 million, with the company to net approximately $100 million. To date, the company has raised about $375 million. With over 300 of the world’s largest AI and GPU deployments running on the WEKA Data Platform, the investment comes at a time of unprecedented business growth for the company.
Silverfort
Sector: Identity Security | Established: 2016 | Founders: Hed Kovetz, Matan Fattal, and Yaron Kassner | Funding: $222 million from Brighton Park Capital (BPC), Acrew Capital, Greenfield Partners, Citi Ventures, General Motors Ventures, Maor Investments, Vintage Investment Partners, StageOne Ventures, and Singtel Innov8.
Silverfort, which develops an identity security platform, announced in January that it had raised $116 million in Series D funding, bringing the total amount raised to $222 million. The company was founded in 2016 by Kovetz, Matan Fattal, and Yaron Kassner, all graduates of the Israeli military’s Unit 8200.
Silverfort’s platform extends modern identity security measures to every enterprise resource, on-prem and in the cloud. It enables Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR), Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM), and real-time protection for privileged users and service accounts. Silverfort connects to the entirety of an organization’s identity infrastructure in a matter of hours.
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