Israeli-Founded Cyber Startup Axis Security Raises $50M

Israeli-founded cybersecurity startup Axis Security announced a $50 million Series C round led by new investor Spark Capital, bringing its total raised to date to $100 million. Also participating in this round were existing investors Canaan Partners, Ten Eleven Ventures, and Cyberstarts, a VC firm backed by founders and entrepreneurs from Sequoia Capital, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, and Imperva, among others.

Founded in 2019 by Dor Knafo and Gil Azrielant, Axis Security emerged from stealth mode in 2020 to launch its purpose-built, cloud-native security and analytics platform to offer organizations control of private application access. The platform allows users to connect on any device in minutes to private apps without going through the network or the applications. The solution is known as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).

The Axis Security Application Access Cloud brokers enterprise access to replace multiple complicated remote access technologies such as VPNs, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and inline cloud access security broker (CASB) services with a simple zero trust platform, the company said in a statement.

These abilities offer safe, secure, remote access, keeping users off a corporate network, and reducing risk by isolating applications.

“When the pandemic hit, the impact of work-from-anywhere was immediate and profound, and organizations trying to scale legacy access technologies really struggled. Axis was well positioned and within months we were enabling secure remote access for hundreds of thousands of users and millions of connections,” said Knafo, who serves as CEO.

“The Application Access Cloud functions as a logical overlay, greatly reducing risk and significantly strengthening security. This technology has the capability to significantly reduce growing cyber threats such as those enabled by the recent SolarWinds and Microsoft email server breaches,” he added.

“Enterprises are reevaluating their access strategies and the market is experiencing a crucial shift in how business is conducted,” said Will Reed, General Partner at Spark Capital. “The challenges with legacy solutions like VPNs were well-known before COVID-19 and became intolerable afterwards. In the past year, Axis has not only proven that they have a vision for the future of enterprise access, but also that they can also deliver on it. We are excited to be on board for the next stage of their growth.”

Axis Security said it will use the funding to accelerate product development, and expand go-to-market initiatives, including growing its direct sales team, support for channel partners, integrations, and partnerships with leading security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), identity management, and endpoint security vendors.

The startup is headquartered in San Mateo, California with research and development in Tel Aviv, Israel