Ex‑Israeli Army Cyber Chief Raises a Whopping $75M to Fortify Cloud Security
When defence‑grade cyber expertise meets venture capital, you get a headline‑making event: Tel Aviv‑based startup Sweet Security, founded by former senior commanders of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) cyber units, has secured a $75 million Series B funding round. The raise signals how sharply global demand is surging for cloud‑native security solutions with military‑grade pedigree.
🔍 What’s happening
- Sweet Security, co‑founded by retired Brig. Gen. Dror Kashti (former IDF CISO), Col. (ret.) Eyal Fisher (ex‑head of Cyber Dept., Unit 8200) and Orel Ben Ishay (former R&D leader in Unit 81), has raised $: 75 million. (ctech)
- The round was led by investment firm Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Munich Re Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners and Key1 Partners. (ctech)
- The funding brings Sweet’s total raised to about $120 million in its roughly two‑and‑a‑half‑year existence. (ctech)
- Sweet’s offering centres on a “cloud‑native application protection platform” (CNAPP) and runtime monitoring across code execution, identity, APIs, configuration risks and post‑attack behaviour. (ctech)
- Of particular note: the startup is building out capabilities to discover, map and secure “shadow AI” agents and LLM‑powered services lurking inside enterprise environments. (ctech)
🧠 Why it matters
- As organisations shift workloads to the cloud and adopt AI‑driven agents, traditional perimeter and API‑scan approaches are falling short. Sweet’s founders argue that runtime visibility — seeing how systems actually execute live — is the next frontier of cloud defence. (SecurityWeek)
- The fact that ex‑military cyber leadership is behind this underscores a broader trend: elite defence‑cyber talent transitioning into commercial cloud‑security ventures. That suggests a convergence of nation‑state techniques and enterprise defences.
- From an investment lens: in a market with lots of noise and hypes, a $75 million raise for a cloud‑security startup with a credible team and product underlines the scale of the problem and the appetite for solutions.
- For enterprises, the move signals that cloud security — especially runtime, identity, and AI agent‑exposure monitoring — is now a boardroom and CISO‑level priority. Vendors and security teams may need to reassess if their tools are catching what matters now, not just what used to matter.
🔮 What to watch
- Product evolution: Will Sweet’s runtime platform deliver on the promise of real‑time, context‑rich visibility across cloud workloads, identities (human and non‑human) and AI agents? Will it integrate into existing tool‑chains (SIEMs, SOAR, IAM) smoothly?
- Competitive landscape: Other vendors in cloud‑ and AI‑security (especially Israeli‑based ones) are also scaling. How Sweet differentiates and executes will be interesting.
- Market adoption: Will enterprises shift budgets toward runtime/agent‑based cloud security rather than just perimeter or API‑based scans? This round suggests they may begin doing so.
- Exit potential: With valuations mounting in the cloud‑security space, whether Sweet aims at acquisition or IPO down the road is something to watch, especially given the pedigree of its founders.
Glossary
- CNAPP (Cloud Native Application Protection Platform): A security solution that protects cloud‑native applications (e.g., microservices, containers, serverless) across their lifecycle — from development through runtime — combining workload security, identity management, vulnerability posture, and more.
- Runtime security: Rather than focusing only on pre‑deployment scanning or configuration, runtime security monitors live behaviour of applications and systems to detect anomalies, attacks, misuse of credentials, or lateral behaviour in real time.
- Shadow AI: AI/ML agents or models running inside an organisation (often without full awareness) — e.g., LLMs, autonomous bots, scripts — that may have permissions or behaviours that expose the organisation to risk.
- Unit 8200 / Unit 81: Elite Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) cyber‑intelligence and technological units. Founders from these units often bring offensive and defensive cyber expertise into commercial startups.
- Series B Funding Round: In venture capital, a later stage of startup funding after seed and Series A, often used to scale operations, expand market reach, hire, and build product maturity.
✅ In summary
Sweet Security’s $75 million raise is a clear signal: cloud security — especially when it includes runtime visibility, identity of non‑human agents, and AI/agent exposure — is rapidly moving from niche to mainstream. With founders who’ve defended real‑world infrastructures and a bleeding‑edge approach to runtime monitoring, Sweet embodies the next wave of enterprise security: where “see it live, stop it live” becomes the new mantra. Organisations and investors alike will be watching how effectively they deliver — and whether this raise turns into real‑world market traction.
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