At Globes' TECH IL conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Cyberstarts managing partner Hila Zigan said it has never been harder to build a successful company. She argued that while it is still possible to raise seed funding, turning a startup into a company that can predict the market, move quickly, and sell to major enterprises has become much tougher because the market itself is changing too fast and most earlier forecasts proved wrong.
In a conversation with Globes tech reporter Meital Weizberg, Zigan said AI is transforming cybersecurity in a unique way. "This is the first time technology is changing organizations and helping them become more efficient, while at the same time helping attackers," she said. She added that investors cannot know exactly where the market is heading, but watching the same shift on both sides, defenders and attackers, is "super interesting." She stressed that Cyberstarts still invests primarily in the founder, looking for people with resilience and the ability to learn quickly.
Zigan said AI is also changing which cyber categories attract capital. She pointed to recent waves in AI Governance, AI Security, Agent Security, where she said there are already 120 startups, and SOC Automation, where the fund has met more than 40 pitching teams. She also cited Identity Agents, phishing and social engineering tools, and automated systems for finding vulnerabilities. At the same time, attackers have become more efficient, and companies are responding with faster automated detection and remediation.
She said many categories become difficult to enter if founders miss the right timing, and that raising Series A, B, and especially C funding is much harder than seed. Some categories have disappeared entirely, while investors wait to see which companies survive. Zigan also said AI has cut the number of developers companies need, with costs shifting from payroll to tokens. Asked about Israel's advantage, she said the country does have a strong position. Her advice to founders is to think only about the next six months, move faster, and understand the market and technologies quickly because there is no longer time to wait.
