After founder departure, Cisco invests in Zafran Security
The strategic investment follows backing from American Express Ventures and expands the Israeli startup's blue-chip investor base.
Cybersecurity company Zafran Security announced on Wednesday that Cisco Investments, the venture capital arm of networking giant Cisco, has invested in the company. It marks the second strategic investment Zafran has secured in the past six months, following an investment by American Express Ventures.
The size of Cisco's investment was not disclosed, but it is expected to increase Zafran's total funding from approximately $130 million to more than $140 million.
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Zafran Security founders. Snir Havdala (right), recently left the company.
(Photo: Eric Sultan)
The investment comes just days after Calcalist revealed that Snir Havdala, one of Zafran's co-founders and its CPO, had left the company to take a management position at Nvidia.
Founded in 2022 by Sanaz Yashar, Snir Havdala, and Ben Seri, Zafran was established by three cybersecurity veterans with backgrounds in Israel's defense establishment. Yashar, who was born in Tehran, immigrated to Israel, served for 15 years in Unit 8200, and later led international cyber investigations at FireEye-Mandiant, also served as the inspiration for the character of Mossad agent Tamar Rabinyan, portrayed by Niv Sultan in the television series Tehran.
Earlier this week, Calcalist also reported that Zafran, regarded as one of Israel's most promising cybersecurity startups, has struggled to accelerate its growth in an increasingly competitive market. Despite those challenges, the company continues to attract major strategic investors. Cisco Investments joins an investor base that includes Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, Menlo Ventures, PSP Growth, Vintage Investment Partners, and American Express Ventures.
"As the threat landscape grows increasingly complex in the AI era, the challenge for security teams has extended from identifying vulnerabilities to effectively orchestrating their remediation." said Janey Hoe, Vice President at Cisco Investments.
According to Zafran, AI is enabling cyberattacks to become faster and more sophisticated, making it increasingly difficult for organizations to determine which vulnerabilities require immediate attention.
Zafran develops software that integrates with an organization's existing security infrastructure, analyzes the data generated by multiple defense tools, and prioritizes vulnerabilities based on their actual level of risk. The platform is designed to help security teams decide which threats to address first without replacing the security systems they already use.
"Organizations have made enormous investments in cybersecurity over the past decade. The opportunity now is to make those investments work together," said Sanaz Yashar, CEO and Co-Founder of Zafran Security. "AI has fundamentally changed how attackers operate, increasing the speed, scale, and sophistication of exploitation. We built Zafran to be the nerve center that helps organizations understand exploitability, identify where to act first, and mobilize the security controls they already have to reduce risk before exploitation occurs. We're proud to welcome Cisco Investments as we continue building that vision."
