Israeli Cybersecurity Firm Guardio Raises $40 Million, Reaches Unicorn Status

Israeli cybersecurity company Guardio announced it has successfully raised $40 million in a new funding round, valuing the company at $1.1 billion and officially making it a unicorn. The investment round was led by existing investors including ION Crossover Partners, Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Cerca Partners, and Emerge Ventures.

Among the notable participants in this round was Assaf Rappaport, co-founder and CEO of Wiz, who previously sold his company to Google in a significant deal. Guardio has also achieved a major milestone by surpassing one million paying customers and reaching $150 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). This marks the fourth consecutive year the company has experienced over 100% revenue growth.

The newly acquired capital will be used to enhance Guardio's end-user protection platform. The company aims to counter the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, which are now often powered by artificial intelligence tools that lower the barrier to entry for malicious actors. The FBI reports that cybercrime losses targeting U.S. consumers alone exceeded $20 billion.

Guardio's approach focuses on protecting the individual user rather than just the device. Its system monitors messages, emails, calls, and online activity to understand user behavior and proactively stop fraudulent activities, sometimes before the user even interacts with a malicious link. The platform is designed to detect complex, cross-channel attack scenarios, offering private users a level of security previously only available to large corporations.

"Cyber attackers stopped attacking computers years ago they are attacking the person directly, and in the AI era this has become cheaper, easier, and more accessible than ever," said Guardio co-founder and CEO Amos Peled. "Cyber defense must be rebuilt around the person, not the device. This is exactly what a million users are already paying us for."

Assaf Rappaport added, "In the AI era, scams have become more sophisticated and personalized than ever, and Guardio brings this depth of protection to billions of people who are forced to deal with online threats alone. I am happy to invest and help this company make the digital world safer."