Cybersecurity startup Cylake launches with $45M to construct AI-native data sovereignty security platform

Cybersecurity startup Cylake Inc. launched today with an announcement that it had raised $45 million in funding to further develop its artificial intelligence-driven cybersecurity platform

Founded by Nir Zuk, Wilson Xu and Ehud (Udi) Shamir (pictured), veterans of Palo Alto Networks Inc. and SentinelOne Inc., Cylake is developing a cybersecurity platform that’s designed for organizations that require full control over their operational and security on-premises or in private cloud environments with full data sovereignty.

The corporate’s approach centers on an AI-native architecture that keeps security data and analytics inside the customer’s controlled environment while aggregating telemetry from across infrastructure, applications and security systems.

The offering differs from other security tools that depend on cloud-hosted analytics platforms that centralize telemetry outside a corporation’s infrastructure, which may conflict with regulatory requirements or internal policies around data sovereignty.

The platform operates by collecting operational and security data from sources reminiscent of network infrastructure, endpoints, cloud workloads and security tools and consolidating it right into a unified data layer. The information is processed locally inside the customer’s environment using machine learning models and automatic evaluation workflows designed to look at system activity and discover abnormal patterns.

Data sovereignty is essential to the offering, with the platform processing information inside on-premises or private infrastructure deployments to take care of control over sensitive datasets, quite than exporting logs and telemetry to external evaluation services.

Cylake’s platform provides visibility across interconnected infrastructure components by correlating events and telemetry streams from multiple sources before analyzing activity across datasets to detect potential security incidents, generate alerts and assist with investigation workflows. Complementary automated evaluation components evaluate event relationships, track activity patterns and supply context around system behavior to permit security teams to analyze incidents using data drawn from across their operational environment.

The platform is pitched as being ideal for organizations that operate in environments where data movement and external processing are restricted, including government agencies, critical infrastructure operators and controlled industries reminiscent of finance and healthcare.

“Cybersecurity is continually evolving and sometimes latest challenges demand completely latest approaches,” explains Nir Zuk, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cylake. “Cylake is for institutions where maintaining full control over data and operations is just not optional.”

The seed funding round was led by Greylock Partners, with “additional experienced technology investors” also participating.

“The subsequent generation of cybersecurity will probably be AI-native, agentic and built on holistic data and context,” said Asheem Chandna, Partner at Greylock Partners. “Cylake is concentrated on a segment of the market where security must operate under full control to satisfy regulatory and operational reality.”

Photo: Cylake