Israeli AI-native cybersecurity firm Tenzai, which is redefining penetration testing by means of autonomous, agentic AI, right now introduced it has emerged from stealth with a $75 million seed spherical. The spherical was led by Greylock Companions, Lux Capital, and Battery Ventures, with participation from Swish Ventures and outstanding angel traders.
Tenzai was based simply six months in the past by cybersecurity veterans Pavel Gurvich, Ariel Zeitlin, Ofri Ziv, Itamar Tal, and Aner Mazur. Gurvich and Zeitlin beforehand cofounded Guardicore, with Ziv and Tal as a part of the corporate’s founding staff. Guardicore was later acquired by Akamai in 2021 for $600 million, certainly one of Akamai’s largest acquisitions so far. Mazur was founding CPO at Snyk. The staff has main cyberattack expertise from their service in army intelligence and in main safety groups. Tenzai presently has 20 workers.
Tenzai cofounder and CEO Pavel Gurvich stated, “Pentesting hasn’t modified a lot since I used to be a pentester in highschool some 25 years in the past. Again then the work was episodic and guide. Immediately, AI permits us to convey elite, nation-grade offensive capabilities at a scale and pace that had been beforehand unattainable. In giant enterprises with tons of of functions that change day by day, offering actual safety assurance is barely attainable with autonomous AI that may discover and repair vulnerabilities at enterprise scale. That’s why we constructed Tenzai – to convey always-on offensive capabilities so organizations can transfer quick and keep safe.”
Gurvich says the thought behind Tanzai was born after he and his pals left Akamai and had been planning to take a break. “We left Akamai and deliberate to relaxation, to be with household, however we shortly began asking ourselves what’s subsequent,” he says, including that they realized that on this discipline, which he says is near their hearts, there’s a enormous alternative.
“In a world the place for each greenback spent on software program, 5 {dollars} are spent on companies, the sphere of cybersecurity companies has hardly undergone an actual revolution. That is the place there’s a enormous alternative to innovate by means of AI,” he says. “Essentially the most complicated discipline in cybersecurity is penetration testing, when organizations rent exterior hackers who attempt to break into their techniques to seek out weaknesses. It is a methodology that works, but it surely’s costly, gradual, and depending on the supply of human consultants.”
Gurvich explains that the scarcity of high quality safety consultants solely exacerbates the issue. He explains, “There are only a few really good consultants available in the market, and the demand is barely rising. When there aren’t sufficient expert palms, the standard suffers, and the assessments turn into too superficial and never accessible sufficient. We wish to change that, to make the assessments steady, autonomous, and obtainable to any group at any given second.”
The 5 entrepreneurs – 4 veterans of the IDF’s cyber items and one other entrepreneur who joined them – have been working collectively for twenty years. “We’ve been pals for 20 years, constructing, arguing, doing issues collectively,” he says. “We all know easy methods to argue with out combating, and that could be a nice reward. We’ve a whole lot of scars from previous expertise – easy methods to construct an enterprise, easy methods to take a disruptive product to market, easy methods to work correctly with prospects. These items can’t be realized in idea. Solely when a buyer is offended with you, and you might want to assist them, do you actually learn to construct an organization.”
Tanzai already works with giant organizations in finance, healthcare and expertise. “We’ve purchasers that aren’t startups, however the higher finish of the market, corporations with heavy regulation and information sensitivity, the place the issues are actually powerful,” he says. “We really feel very privileged to unravel an actual drawback that has been with the software program and cybersecurity world for years.”
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on November 11, 2025.
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