Cybersecurity Venture Capital

Cybersecurity venture capital built around real market signals

Glilot Capital is an AI-first VC firm founded in Israel in 2011 as the world’s first VC dedicated to cybersecurity. Today, we invest in cybersecurity, AI and enterprise software at seed and early growth through Glilot Seed and Glilot+. The firm manages approximately $1.3 billion and has completed 27 exits.

Our cybersecurity strategy starts with a simple principle: strong technology becomes a company only when real buyers are ready to adopt it. We combine focused investing with direct access to CISOs and senior enterprise leaders, structured product-market fit work through Mach5, and ongoing support from our Value Creation team.

Why cybersecurity requires a specialized investment approach

Cybersecurity markets are shaped by both technology adoption and active adversaries. New infrastructure, cloud architectures and AI systems create new ways to build, but they also create new attack surfaces. This keeps security priorities closely tied to operational risk and makes practitioner insight essential to investment decisions.

Gartner forecast worldwide end-user spending on information security of $213 billion in 2025 and $240 billion in 2026, representing 12.5% growth. Security software was expected to account for approximately $105.9 billion in 2025, ahead of security services at $83.8 billion. Gartner linked continued growth to rising threats and the expanding use of AI by employees and attackers. [4]

The threat data points in the same direction. Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 31% of breaches began with software vulnerabilities, 48% involved ransomware, and 15 attack techniques were being augmented by generative AI. For investors, the implication is clear: cybersecurity is not a single, static category. It is a constantly evolving market made up of distinct subcategories, buyers and technology layers. Investment decisions must therefore begin with the problem, the team and real buyer signals rather than a fixed market map.

Israel’s role in global cybersecurity

Israeli cybersecurity companies raised $4.1 billion in 2025, according to Start-Up Nation Central. Cybersecurity ranked behind business software in total funding, but its median deal size reached $20 million, twice the median for business software.

The sector’s depth extends beyond a single year. Start-Up Nation Central reported that Israeli cybersecurity funding in 2024 was equal to 40% of the total raised by the U.S. cybersecurity market. The number of Israeli cybersecurity companies grew from 272 in 2014 to 505 in 2024, 60% of them remained at an early stage, and seven of the world’s ten largest cybersecurity companies maintained R&D centres in Israel.

That concentration of founders, technical expertise, buyers and global acquirers gives Israel an unusually strong cybersecurity ecosystem. It also creates a competitive seed market in which access to capital is only one part of what founders need from an investor.

Where Glilot Capital invests

Glilot Capital invests from the first institutional round through early growth. Glilot Seed leads seed investments. Glilot+ invests in companies after Series A that have established early traction and are ready to scale. In September 2025, Glilot Capital announced $500 million across new Seed and Glilot+ funds. Reuters reported that approximately half of each fund was reserved for follow-on investments. [1][2][3]

Cybersecurity, AI and enterprise software increasingly overlap. AI systems create new identity, governance and data-security requirements. Security products must integrate into cloud and developer workflows. Enterprise infrastructure becomes more valuable when it can be deployed with trust. We therefore evaluate companies across these intersections instead of treating them as separate markets.

What gets our attention

We look for founders who understand a problem from the inside and can turn that insight into a category-defining company. Five signals consistently matter in our investment process:

• A founding team with first-hand technical, operational or industry knowledge of the problem.
• A problem large and urgent enough to support a category, with a buyer who has both responsibility and budget.
• Technical depth that remains valuable as models, platforms and competitors evolve.
• Evidence that enterprise buyers will change an existing process or priority to adopt the product.
• The ambition and adaptability to build a durable global company.

Our due diligence combines technical and market analysis with direct practitioner feedback. Glilot Capital’s network of CISOs and enterprise leaders helps us test whether a problem is urgent, how buying decisions are made, and what would need to be true for adoption. That input brings real market signals into the investment process and makes the evidence more concrete.

From investment to product market fit

The first institutional round starts the work. Early cybersecurity companies must refine the product, identify the right buyer, navigate enterprise procurement and convert interest into repeatable adoption. Many strong technologies stall because these pieces do not align at the same time.

Mach5 is Glilot Capital’s structured product-market fit program. It brings portfolio founders into direct conversations with senior operators and prospective customers from our advisory network. The goal is to generate real feedback on the problem, product, positioning and buying process early enough to act on it.

Our Value Creation team continues to work across go-to-market strategy, customer access, executive hiring and the next stages of growth. The model is designed to create a faster loop between assumptions and market signals, helping founders make decisions with more clarity.

A track record built in cybersecurity

Glilot has completed 27 exits since 2011, including all eight investments from its first fund. Selected publicly reported cybersecurity exits include:

Company	Acquirer	Reported value	Date
Aorato	Microsoft	Approx. $200M	November 2014 [10]
IntSights	Rapid7	$335M	July 2021 [11]
Cider Security	Palo Alto Networks	Not disclosed	December 2022 [12]
Ermetic	Tenable	$265M	September 2023 [13]
Entitle	BeyondTrust	$100M-$150M reported	April 2024 [14]
LayerX	Akamai	$205M	May 2026 [15]
CardinalOps	Cribl	Approx. $100M	July 2026 [16]

These outcomes reflect several paths to value creation, from products acquired by major platforms to companies that helped define new security categories. The current portfolio continues that focus across identity, cloud, application security, data security and AI-native security.

Building for category leadership

Cybersecurity has an active global acquirer market. In 2025, Israeli technology M&A reached $74.3 billion across 150 transactions, led by Alphabet’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz and Palo Alto Networks’ approximately $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk.

At the same time, founders need to build around customer value rather than a presumed exit path. Category leadership begins with a significant problem, a differentiated product and a repeatable reason for enterprises to adopt it. Pricing, hiring and go-to-market choices should support that ambition from the first year.

Working with a specialist cybersecurity investor

A specialist investor should contribute more than pattern recognition. It should understand which security problems have real urgency, how CISOs evaluate new products, where integrations create friction, and what evidence can move a company from an initial pilot to broad enterprise adoption.

Glilot brings that context into both investment decisions and the work that follows. The combination of sector focus, partner involvement, the CISO advisory network, Mach5 and the Value Creation team is built to turn strong ideas into real market traction, and real traction into category leadership.

Frequently asked questions

What stages does Glilot Capital invest in

Glilot invests from seed through early growth. Glilot Seed leads first institutional rounds, while Glilot+ invests after Series A & B in companies with early traction.

Which sectors does Glilot Capital focus on

Cybersecurity, AI and enterprise software, with particular interest in the infrastructure and control layers where these markets converge.

How does Glilot Capital support product market fit

Mach5 connects portfolio founders with CISOs, senior operators and prospective buyers for structured feedback on the problem, product and buying process. The Value Creation team supports go-to-market execution, customer access, hiring and growth.

How can founders contact Glilot Capital

Founders building ambitious companies in cybersecurity, AI or enterprise software can contact Glilot Capital through glilotcapital.com/contact-us. Bring the problem, the insight and the evidence. Let’s make it real.

Sources

[1] Reuters, Israel’s Glilot Capital raises $500 million for new AI and cybersecurity investments, 17 September 2025.

[2] Globes, Glilot Capital raises $500m for VC funds, 17 September 2025.


[3] Calcalist and CTech, Glilot Capital raises $500 million, topping $1 billion in assets, 17 September 2025.


[4] Gartner, Gartner Forecasts Worldwide End User Spending on Information Security to Total $213 Billion in 2025, 29 July 2025.


[5] Verizon, 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report.


[6] Start-Up Nation Central, Israeli Tech Annual Report 2025, 22 December 2025.


[7] Calcalist and CTech, Israeli startups raised $15.6 billion in 2025 as AI drove bigger, more concentrated bets, 22 December 2025.


[8] Start-Up Nation Central, Israel’s Cybersecurity Sector Surges, Secures 40% of U.S. Funding Total, 13 July 2025, updated 5 November 2025.


[9] Reuters, reporting on the Wiz and CyberArk acquisitions, 17 September 2025.


[10] TechCrunch, Microsoft Buys Israeli Hybrid Cloud Security Startup Aorato In $200M Deal, 13 November 2014.


[11] SecurityWeek, Rapid7 to Acquire Threat Intelligence Firm IntSights for $335 Million, 20 July 2021.


[12] Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks Completes Acquisition of Cider Security, 20 December 2022.


[13] Globes, Tenable confirms acquisition of Israeli cloud security company Ermetic, 7 September 2023.


[14] Globes, BeyondTrust buys Israeli access security company Entitle, April 2024.


[15] Calcalist and CTech, Akamai acquires Israeli AI browser security startup LayerX for $205 million in cash, 14 May 2026.


[16] Calcalist and CTech, Cribl acquires Israeli cyber startup CardinalOps for around $100 million, 14 July 2026.


[17] Glilot Capital, About and Portfolio pages, current firm data for assets under management and exits.