Talpiot graduates raise $10 million for Upriver, backed by Cyera founders and New Relic creator
Founded by Israel Defense Prize winners Ido Bronstein and Omri Lifshitz, the startup is developing AI agents that autonomously manage enterprise data, attracting support from leading cybersecurity and software entrepreneurs.
Israeli data infrastructure startup Upriver has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Valley Capital Partners, which has previously invested in companies such as Decart and Factify. Existing investor Hetz Ventures also participated in the round, following its earlier investment of approximately $4 million.
The round included several prominent angel investors, among them Lew Cirne, founder of New Relic; Yotam Segev and Tamar Bar-Ilan, founders of Cyera; and Abe Gong, founder of Great Expectations.
Upriver was founded in 2024 by Ido Bronstein and Omri Lifshitz, graduates of the prestigious Talpiot program who both hold master's degrees in artificial intelligence.
Bronstein served for six years in Unit 8200 after completing the Talpiot program, holding roles in cyber operations management and data platform development. He was awarded the Israel Defense Prize for his contributions. Lifshitz led cyber research and development projects at the Prime Minister’s Office, where he oversaw the creation of complex data systems designed to collect, process, and make large volumes of information available in real time. He also received the Israel Defense Prize.
The pair initially planned to launch a company after completing their military service, but the October 7 attack and the ensuing war delayed those plans. Both founders were called up for extended reserve duty and established Upriver after completing their service.
Upriver currently employs 21 people across Israel and the United States and already works with organizations including Unity and DMGT. The company also integrates with leading data platforms such as Databricks and Snowflake.
The startup has developed an AI agent platform designed to autonomously manage enterprise data infrastructure. Its system connects to corporate data environments, identifies and resolves data quality issues, maintains existing data workflows, and creates new databases. Using a proprietary context engine, the platform can map an organization's entire data environment and deploy AI agents that collaborate to analyze, validate, and manage information across complex data ecosystems.
“We’re seeing enterprises invest heavily in AI, but struggle to see real impact because their data simply isn’t ready,” said Ido Bronstein, CEO and co-founder of Upriver. “We built Upriver to take that burden off data teams entirely. Instead of constantly sinking in repetitive technical work, data teams can lift their heads above water and focus on what moves the needle for the business, while handling the grunt work. Our goal is to make data infrastructure invisible, so enterprises can extract their organizational knowledge from the messy data and finally get from AI what was originally promised - a true force multiplier.”
