Gili Raanan
Founder @ Cyberstarts
Tel Aviv, Israel
Gili Raanan is a leading cybersecurity-focused venture capitalist and the founder of Cyberstarts, an premier early-stage VC firm investing in leading cybersecurity innovators. Since founding Cyberstarts in 2018, Gili has been instrumental in the early success of category-defining companies such as Wiz, Armis, Island, Fireblocks, Cyera, TransmitSecurity, and Upwind. Gili Raanan’s expertise in cybersecurity stems from his service in Israel’s elite Unit 8200 intelligence unit, where he was honored with the Israel Defense Forces Presidential Medal and the Innovation Award. As a technologist and entrepreneur, Gili is recognized as the inventor of CAPTCHA and played a foundational role in the creation of the web application firewall. His name appears on more than 10 U.S. patents across cybersecurity and application management.Before founding Cyberstarts, Gili launched two successful startups, Sanctum and nLayers, which were acquired by IBM and EMC, respectively. He later served as VP of Strategy at EMC and in 2009 joined Sequoia Capital as a General Partner, where he led investments in Israel’s emerging tech landscape with a focus on security and infrastructure. Under Gili Raanan’s leadership, Cyberstarts has raised over $720 million across five funds, with a portfolio now valued at more than $55 billion. The fund has backed multiple companies through significant exits, including Noname Security, Axis, Bionic, and Avalor. Gili currently sits on the Board of Directors for more than 10 Cyberstarts portfolio companies. In recognition of his ongoing impact in venture capital and cybersecurity, Gili was named #24 on the 2025 Forbes Midas List and ranked #3 on the Seed List. Gili Raanan lives in Mikhmoret, Israel, and is also a minority owner of Hapoel Tel Aviv’s professional basketball team.
- Total investments:
- 62
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 35%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Gili Raanan invests in
Stages Gili Raanan invests in
Countries Gili Raanan invests in
Round sizes
Round size
- Seed
- $2.5M–$8M
- Series A
- $4.5M–$100M
- Series B
- $10M–$130M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Cyber Security 14 (23%)
- Software 11 (18%)
- Information Technology 8 (13%)
- Security 7 (11%)
- Cloud Security 6 (10%)
Stage
- Series A 19 (31%)
- Series B 17 (27%)
- Seed 8 (13%)
- Series C 8 (13%)
- Series D 3 (5%)
Country
- United States 19 (31%)
- Israel 6 (10%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Onyx Security
|
Onyx Security enables organizations via a holistic platform to adopt AI and AI agents with confidence - without compromising security. | $113M / Series B / Jul 29, 2026 | |
Glow
|
Glow is an AI-powered endpoint security company.Glow’s AI agents create a single source of truth across devices, people, and software, understand risk in the context of your policies, and - within the guardrails you set - autonomously prevent problems before they become incidents. | $100M / Series B / Jul 22, 2026 | |
Cyera
|
Cyera provides a data security platform that helps organizations discover, classify, monitor, and protect sensitive data across cloud, SaaS, on-premises, and hybrid environments. The platform combines data security posture management, data loss prevention, access governance, and AI security capabilities to help organizations understand wherecritical data resides, who can access it, and how it is being used. Cyera uses automated data discovery and classification to identify sensitive information and assess potential security risks across enterprise systems. Its platform also supports monitoring of human and AI interactions with data, enabling organizations to investigate access activity, manage permissions, and address security issues. Through integrations with existing technology environments, Cyera helps security teams maintain visibility into data assets and implement controls to reduce data-related risk. | $600M / Series G / Jun 02, 2026 | |
Linx Security
|
The Linx Identity Security platform enables identity, security, and IT ops teams to finally control the whole identity lifecycle. A radical departure from legacy identity security solutions, Linx untangles the complex, ever-evolving web of identity security. Integrating smoothly with your IAM stack, Linx pulls together all your organization’sidentity data—organizing it neatly to reveal the hidden links between your employees, their digital identities, and the apps, software, platforms, and programs they have access to. Enabling you to continuously reduce your identity attack surface and swiftly close gaps in compliance. | $50M / Series B / Mar 31, 2026 | |
Surf AI
|
Surf AI aims to help enterprise security teams continuously identify and close security exposure gaps through an AI-driven operations platform. | $57M / Series A / Mar 17, 2026 | |
|
Onyx Security
|
Onyx Security enables organizations via a holistic platform to adopt AI and AI agents with confidence - without compromising security. | $35M / Series A / Mar 12, 2026 | |
Upwind Security
|
Upwind Security creates and develops software and online tools that ensures security of cloud infrastructure. It manages runtime environments of the cloud platform. | $250M / Series B / Jan 26, 2026 | |
Vega
|
Vega Security offers cybersecurity services for cyberattack detection. | $120M / Series B / Dec 17, 2025 | |
|
Vega
|
Vega Security offers cybersecurity services for cyberattack detection. | $60M / Series A / Sep 16, 2025 | |
|
Cyera
|
Cyera provides a data security platform that helps organizations discover, classify, monitor, and protect sensitive data across cloud, SaaS, on-premises, and hybrid environments. The platform combines data security posture management, data loss prevention, access governance, and AI security capabilities to help organizations understand wherecritical data resides, who can access it, and how it is being used. Cyera uses automated data discovery and classification to identify sensitive information and assess potential security risks across enterprise systems. Its platform also supports monitoring of human and AI interactions with data, enabling organizations to investigate access activity, manage permissions, and address security issues. Through integrations with existing technology environments, Cyera helps security teams maintain visibility into data assets and implement controls to reduce data-related risk. | $540M / Series E / Jun 11, 2025 | |
| See all 62 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Cyberstarts
Cyberstarts is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests exclusively in cybersecurity. Founded in 2018 by Gili Raanan, the fund partners with ambitious entrepreneurs to launch and scale category-defining security companies. Through its flagship Sunrise Program, Cyberstarts supports founders by providing operational expertise, deep industryinsight, and direct access to a network of leading CISOs.As of 2025, Cyberstarts has raised over $720 million across five funds. Its portfolio includes industry leaders like Wiz, Fireblocks, Island, Cyera, and Transmit Security, and represents close to half the global private cybersecurity market cap with a portfolio valuation of more than $55 billion. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Cyberstarts is proud to be the partner of choice for top-tier cybersecurity founders worldwide.
Cyberstarts Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Barak Klinghofer
Member
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Eyal Gruner
Member
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Gil Azrielant
Member
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Gili Raanan
Founder
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Idan Levin
Member
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FAQ
What does Gili Raanan invest in?
Gili Raanan invests primarily in Cyber Security, Software and Information Technology startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 62 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Gili Raanan's check size?
Gili Raanan typically joins rounds of $2.5M–$8M at Seed, $4.5M–$100M at Series A and $10M–$130M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Gili Raanan participates in.
When did Gili Raanan last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Gili Raanan closed in Jul 2026. Shizune tracks 62 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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