Orca acquiring web application security startup RapidSec

Cybersecurity unicorn Orca Security has announced that it is acquiring fellow Israeli startup RapidSec, which focuses on protecting web applications from client-side attacks. The valuation of the deal wasn’t announced, but Calcalist estimates that it is around $5 million, and will include both cash and stock components.

RapidSec was founded in 2020 by Shai Alon (CEO), former co-founder of Chat Leap - a "No code" platform for building marketing chatbots, as well as team leader at Totango; Ori Koral (VP of R&D) who served in Unit 8200 in cyber R&D roles and was the second employee at ClarityRay, acquired by Yahoo and was a director of engineering at Yahoo; and Ido Yablonka (active chairman), serial entrepreneur and former Yahoo-Verizon Israel CEO.

RapidSec has 50 paying customers including Dun & Bradstreet, and Konica Minolta. The company has seven employees who are all expected to join the acquiring company and form a nucleus for a new development group opening in Orca. RapidSec has raised half a million dollars from Spinach Angels - the first investor in the company, as well as from F2 Venture Capital’s pre-seed fund, the angels Ofer Ben-Noon and Ohad Bobrov (founders of Talon Security), Ron Rimon (chairman and founder of WhiteSource), Elad Shulman (founder of Segasec) and Amir Konigsberg (serial entrepreneur, CEO of Pragma).

“Orca's vision has been and remains - a cloud security solution that works for the customer, enabling organizations to grow in the cloud safely. The acquisition will allow us to further expand our platform,” said Avi Shua, CEO and co-founder of Orca, which raised $340 million at a $1.8 billion valuation last October.

Shai Alon, CEO and co-founder of RapidSec, noted that “as its name implies, RapidSec's vision since its inception has been to offer self-service protection for web applications at speed and quality that did not exist in the market. We’ve been able to protect thousands of web applications throughout the company's life.”