Israeli Cybersecurity Dominates Global Rankings, Driven by AI Threats

Israeli cybersecurity firms are significantly leading the global market, with nearly half of the companies on Fortune magazine's prestigious Cyber 60 list being founded by Israeli entrepreneurs. This marks the fourth consecutive year the list, which evaluates venture-backed cybersecurity companies worldwide based on growth rate, revenue, and business performance, has highlighted Israeli dominance.

This year's Cyber 60 included 29 Israeli companies out of over 300 evaluated. The local industry's strength was particularly evident in emerging categories: 6 out of 20 companies in the growth stage, 11 out of 20 in early growth, and a record 12 out of 20 in the early stage, representing 60% of that category.

The technological focus of these companies reflects the cybersecurity industry's rapid adaptation to next-generation threats, especially the emergence of autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents in corporate environments. These agents, capable of accessing sensitive information and altering business systems, have created new attack surfaces. In response, numerous Israeli startups are developing solutions for monitoring agent activity, preventing data leaks, and creating defensive AI models to aid security teams in threat analysis.

Established companies like Cato Networks, co-founded by Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz, are prominent in the growth stage. Cato Networks connects enterprise communication and information security on a global cloud platform, serving over 4,800 clients with annual recurring revenues exceeding $415 million. Island, co-founded by Dan Amiga and Mike Fey, which raised $400 million at a $6.4 billion valuation, expanded from developing an enterprise browser to controlling employee and AI agent actions, alongside access management and data protection.

Other notable Israeli companies in the growth stage include Cyera, Eon, Torq, and Upwind Security. In the early growth stage, Noma Security, founded in 2023 by Niv Braun and Alon Tron, has raised $132 million to protect AI applications and agents throughout their lifecycle. This category also features Blink Ops, Clutch Security, Descope, Irregular, Linx Security, Ocean, Onyx Security, Reco, 7AI, and Vega.

In the early stage, companies like Neo, founded by Nick Warner, Shlomi Salem, and Eran Shiraz, raised $100 million for a platform overseeing autonomous software and agents, requiring human approval for critical actions. Corma Labs, founded by Alon Pluda, secured $60 million in seed funding for specialized defensive cyber foundational models. Act Security, co-founded by Yonatan Langer, Itay Kirschenbaum, Stefan Goldberg, and Eli Pelach, also raised $60 million to close unnecessary cloud attack paths and access. Bold Security, founded by Nati Hazut, Hadar Krasner, and Omri Melis, raised $40 million for endpoint protection using local AI models to detect data leaks to AI tools. Astelia, founded by Alon Noy, Nadav Ostrovsky, and Roi Rejwan, raised $35 million to map vulnerability exploitation conditions. Other early-stage companies include A Security, Air Security (AIR), Artemis Security, Cylake, Frontier Security, Glow, and Oz Security.