Cyber startup Upwind joins unicorn club with $250 million Series B at $1.5 billion valuation
The AI-driven cloud security platform reports 900% revenue growth and adoption by global enterprises including Siemens, Peloton, Roku, and NuBank.
Cybersecurity company Upwind announced on Monday that it is raising a $250 million Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation. Calcalist first reported the funding round last week.
The round was led by venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners and included Picture Capital, backed by the founders of Island and Transmit Security. With this round, Upwind’s total funding to date reaches $430 million. Other investors include Craft Ventures, known for backing Elon Musk-linked companies such as SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI, as well as TCV, Alta Park Capital, Greylock, Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, Cerca, Sheva, and Penny Jar, the fund backed by NBA star Stephen Curry.
Upwind’s previous funding round took place in late 2024, when the company raised $100 million at an estimated valuation of $800 million to $900 million. The company was reported to be in talks to be acquired by Datadog for an estimated $1 billion in July of last year.
The Israeli company was founded in 2022 by CEO Amiram Shachar, along with his founding partners from Spot.io (acquired by NetApp for $450 million in 2020): Liran Polak, Lavi Ferdman, and Tal Zuri.
“Cloud infrastructures have evolved far faster than the security models designed to protect them,” said Shachar. “The next generation of cloud security requires a fundamentally different approach, a runtime-first method, which is the only way to protect the cloud during the AI era. Upwind was founded with the understanding that effective cloud security must derive from runtime-first data analysis within the cloud environment itself. Our approach enables security teams to eliminate noise, focus on real risks, and protect modern cloud applications more accurately and efficiently.”
Since the last funding round roughly a year ago, Upwind says it has achieved approximately 900% revenue growth and a 200% increase in its customer base. Its platform is now used by global companies including Siemens, Peloton, Roku, and the largest global digital bank, NuBank.
Upwind has developed a cloud security platform, often described as a CNAPP (Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform). The platform consolidates multiple security functions, including Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), vulnerability management, identity security, and container security, into a single comprehensive offering. Its core focus is helping organizations prioritize real risks over irrelevant alerts, streamlining cloud security operations in complex environments.
Shachar is Upwind’s founder and most prominent figure. He served for six years as an officer in the IDF’s Mamram unit, where he managed the military’s data center infrastructure and led the first implementation of virtualization technologies, including VMware, within the IDF. In 2015, he founded Spot.io (originally Spotinst), based on his college final project. Spot.io developed technology that enabled cloud customers to use reserved servers at significantly reduced costs, cutting cloud computing expenses by as much as 80%. The company was acquired by NetApp in 2020 for $450 million, after which Shachar served as Vice President and General Manager at NetApp.
In April 2025, Upwind acquired Nyx Security, a company specializing in real-time application security services, further expanding its cloud security capabilities.
