Israel’s newest cyber unicorn: Cyera raises $300M, almost tripling valuation to $1.4B in less than 10 months
The company has registered rapid growth since raising $100 million at a $500 million valuation last June
After weeks of speculation, data security company Cyera confirmed on Tuesday that it has raised $300 million in Series C funding at a $1.4 billion valuation. The funding round was led by Coatue and joined by new investors Spark Capital, Georgian, and AT&T Ventures, alongside significant investment by all existing investors Sequoia, Accel, Redpoint, and Cyberstarts. Founded in 2021 by Yotam Segev (CEO) and Tamar Bar-Ilan (CTO), the company has secured a total of $460 million to date, raising $100 million at a $500 million valuation last June.
Full list of Israeli high-tech funding rounds in 2024
Cyera’s DSPM (Data Security Posture Management) system is built on an agentless data security approach to discover, classify, assess, and protect structured and unstructured data across clouds, SaaS, data lakes, and on-prem environments. As AI adoption accelerates, data becomes the lifeblood and most critical asset of every modern enterprise. Because of this, data has become the largest and fastest-growing attack surface for bad actors to compromise.
In a conversation with Calcalist, Yotam Segev, the company's CEO and one of its founders, stated that the fundraising does not indicate the existence of a bubble or a return to the celebratory atmosphere of 2021.
"This is not 2021. This is not the right way to look at it," Segev explained. "The leading companies in the world have raised much larger sums, many billions of dollars, to get to where they are. It is a matter of dilution, and it was important for us to raise a significant amount. Additionally, we may also acquire companies and aim to enter the competitive market with a very strong presence. We are not the only ones pursuing this goal, and the players ahead of us are older and larger. The funding will enable us to compete effectively with those players."
Segev emphasized that the fundraising reflects the company's strong performance over the last three years. "The company has been generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually," he said. "We have significant customers, including Paramount, AT&T, and others, who pay substantial sums for our services. We have an aggressive growth forecast for the coming years, driven by the increased use of AI and new regulatory requirements from the SEC."
Related articles:
"We operate in the field of data security, with the potential to generate a billion dollars annually at very high growth rates," Segev continued. "We address not just one-time problems, but a constantly evolving field with new challenges and regulations. Our cloud and AI-based platform excites customers and solves their problems in ways that have not been achieved before. The infusion of funds into the company represents a significant increase in its value. We have successfully established ourselves in the American market and have a strong sales team with a prominent brand presence."
Cyera currently employs 220 people, but Segev is expecting the team to grow to between 350-400 employees by the end of the year, including 120 employees in Israel.
Cyera also announced on Tuesday the appointment of Jason Clark as its Chief Strategy Officer. Clark, formerly Chief Security Officer & Chief Strategy Officer at Netskope, has been an advisor to Cyera since its founding as part of his role at VC firm Cyberstarts. Throughout his 30-year career, Clark has served as Chief Security Officer and held multiple CSO / Go-To-Market leadership positions at organizations such as Optiv, Forcepoint, Emerson Electric, and The New York Times Company.
