Israeli Cybersecurity Unicorn Snyk Raises $196.5M

Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Snyk has raised $196.5 million in a Series G funding round.

The Boston-based company, which was founded in 2015 by Israeli entrepreneurs Assaf Hefetz, Danny Grander and Guy Podjarny in London and Tel Aviv, is now valued at $7.4 billion, according to a Monday (Dec. 12) press release.

The round was led by Qatar Investment Authority, with participation from Evolution Equity Partners, G Squared, Irving Investors, boldstart ventures, Sands Capital and Tiger Global.

Snyk’s platform is designed for software developers to help them build security into their applications as they code them by automatically identifying vulnerabilities. It also provides suggestions for how to fix them.

“In this challenging macroeconomic environment, it is more critical than ever for global enterprises to increase their developer productivity and be able to continue their pace of innovation securely,” Snyk’s CEO Peter McKay commented.

As PYMNTS has reported, Israel is a hotbed of cybersecurity innovation.

On the military side, Israel has world-leading cyber defense capacity, and the Israel Defence Force’s Cyber Defence Unit, alongside the intelligence gathering Unit 8200, even successfully thwarted an air strike in 2018.

In parallel to Israel’s military capacity, civilians have helped the country’s cybersecurity industry grow into the global powerhouse it is today, fueled by cross-pollination and mutual investment. For example, Snyk’s founders are all alumni of Unit 8200.

Thanks to the country’s culture of cybersecurity innovation, even if they aren’t based in Israel, many of the biggest names in the space have their roots there or are founded by Israelis like Snyk. This is the case with the cloud security startup Wiz and SentinelOne, which was valued at nearly $9 billion in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange last year.

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