Israeli AI cybersecurity co Surf AI raises $57m

Israeli startup Surf AI has emerged from stealth right now with $57 million in funding. The corporate is engaged in one of many hottest cybersecurity sectors – utilizing AI brokers to handle and function enterprise safety programs.

The financing rounds had been led by Accel, alongside Gili Raanan’s Cyberstarts and Boldstart Ventures. The corporate, which was based in Tel Aviv in September 2024, is already promoting its merchandise to clients worldwide, together with Fortune 500 corporations, and plans to develop operations and rent workers in Israel and the US.

Surf AI operates in an area that’s changing into more and more highly effective as attackers deploy AI. Organizations are required to take care of complicated programs that embrace identities, cloud infrastructures, knowledge, and enterprise programs, whereas continuously coordinating between groups and instruments. Nonetheless, in observe, a big a part of safety processes remains to be carried out manually or cyclically, typically as soon as a month or quarter, which creates a steady hole between figuring out dangers and dealing with them.

Surf AI is making an attempt to bridge this hole via an AI agent-based platform that constantly displays all organizational property, identifies anomalies in actual time, and routinely prompts remediation processes, underneath human supervision. The system gathers knowledge from quite a lot of programs within the group and builds a dynamic context graph that maps property, permissions, and function holders, so as to perceive not solely what the publicity is, but in addition who’s accountable for it and tips on how to correctly deal with it.

Deep understanding of the organizational context

Surf AI cofounder CEO Yair Grindlinger, explains that the primary downside being tackled just isn’t new, however till lately it couldn’t be automated. Based on him, organizations have at all times needed to cut back publicity on an ongoing foundation, however this required a deep understanding of the organizational context, together with the id of asset homeowners, inner hierarchies, and enterprise processes.

He says, “The excellent news is that due to AI, it’s potential for the primary time to construct a system of brokers that monitor the complete organizational atmosphere and deal with issues in actual time. Based on him, the corporate’s distinctness just isn’t using AI brokers, however the capability to construct a broad and steady image of the context. The system doesn’t accept a snapshot, however analyzes knowledge over time, together with modifications in permissions, precise makes use of, and communication between workers. This fashion, it’s potential to grasp, for instance, who is absolutely accountable for a specific asset, even when at a given second one other person was the final to the touch it.

Grindlinger has over twenty years of expertise in cybersecurity. He was one of many founders of FireLayers, which was bought to Proofpoint, the place he later served in senior administration positions. Based on him, one of many important classes he realized is that the actual problem in cybersecurity just isn’t solely technological but in addition operational. “Day-to-day of safety is far much less glamorous than you suppose. It is about grey processes of approvals, updates, and coordination. It is the bread and butter of the group, and that is the place the actual downside lies,” he says.

Grindlinger based Surf AI with Elad Horn, Roie Cohen Duwek, Avner Gideoni, and Brenton Gumucio. The corporate at present has 66 workers, most of them in Israel, and in addition operates groups within the US. At this stage, it’s specializing in giant organizations, the place the complexity and scope of property make the problem notably important.

Traders within the firm imagine that it is a conceptual change in the best way organizations handle info safety. Gili Raanan, founding father of Cyberstarts, mentioned that AI-based automation can not work with no deep understanding of the organizational context, and that Surf AI succeeds in creating an motion layer primarily based on such an understanding. Accel and Boldstart additionally stress the necessity for brand spanking new operational fashions that may permit safety groups to deal with the tempo of assaults and the rising complexity of programs.

Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on March 17, 2026.