Piiano raises $9 million in Seed for enterprise data security

Piiano, an Israeli company that develops privacy engineering infrastructure for cloud-native applications, has today announced that it has received $9 million in Seed funding led by YL Ventures with the participation of Jibe Ventures and founders of cybersecurity companies such as Snyk, Armis, Wiz, and Aqua. The company hopes to deliver the industry’s first personal data protection and management platform to change how enterprises build privacy-first architecture and operationalize privacy practices.

Piiano was founded by Gil Dabah and Ariel Shiftan and helps companies build and approach privacy for their customers with their Vault and code scanner by streamlining PII visibility and segregation. Before starting Piiano the two ran NorthBit, a cybersecurity firm that was acquired by Magic Leap in 2006.

“We’re so excited to see Gil and Ariel working together again to redraw the lines of where data protection can - and should - start,” said John Brennan, partner at YL Ventures. “Their visionary approach towards this still nascent and highly complex space is owed to their combined experience and expertise.”

Piiano’s solution helps security and privacy teams to monitor and gain data-driven insights into privacy artifacts from application code-bases and helps developers partition and isolate PII (personally identifiable information). According to a survey conducted by IBM, 44% of data breaches involve the loss of this information, and companies today more than ever seek more data on their customers, requesting knowledge on anything from financial, medical, or contact information.

The Piiano Vault, with the help of a code scanner, enables businesses to centralize and secure the PII they collect, as well as any other data, within their own environments. It is deployed on the company’s own virtual private cloud to ensure safety and privacy, without the risk of policy violations when storing data with external service providers.

“Piiano’s cutting through privacy complexity with its privacy-forward approach, which encourages enterprises to treat all future incoming PII with the highest order of privacy mindfulness,” said Justinian Fortenberry, Global Chief Information Security Officer at Zip Co Ltd. “Placing this sensitive information in the Piiano Vault helps resolve the risk faced in the event of a breach without having to risk more exposure. It’s an incredible strategy that offers the most efficient returns on privacy and security spend.”

Andy Ellis, former CISO of Akamai, added that the company redefines how enterprises execute security and privacy by reducing the privacy risk of a breach to zero. “Their pioneering work in privacy engineering enables any company at any stage to deploy a unified PII management system that starts at the code and database level.”

YL Ventures is based in Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley and manages more than $300 million with a focus on cybersecurity companies. It has invested in Israeli unicorns Axonius and Orca Security and its portfolio companies have been acquired by corporations including Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, CA, and Proofpoint.