Oasis founders set for $200 million-plus payday in $1 billion Cyera acquisition
The Cyera acquisition comes less than four years after Danny Brickman and Amit Zimerman launched a company focused on securing machine identities.
Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire Oasis Security in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion. In addition to being one of the largest cybersecurity acquisitions ever involving an Israeli startup, the transaction is expected to generate a significant payday for Oasis's 170 employees, who are set to receive more than $100 million from the exercise of their stock options.
The two companies share several major investors, including Cyberstarts, Sequoia Capital, and Accel. In Oasis's latest funding round, completed earlier this year, the company was valued at approximately $700 million. Cyera, which recently raised $600 million at a $12 billion valuation, generates an estimated $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and has been growing at a rate of several hundred percent annually.
Since its founding, Oasis has raised approximately $195 million across three funding rounds. The company raised about $75 million in its Seed and Series A rounds, led by Cyberstarts, Sequoia Capital, and Accel. Its $120 million Series B round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from existing investors as well as Frontline Ventures and Leaders Fund.
The company's investors, who collectively own an estimated 50%-60% of Oasis, are expected to receive between $500 million and $600 million from the transaction. Founders Danny Brickman and Amit Zimerman, who together held an estimated 20%-30% stake in the company, are expected to receive between $200 million and $300 million, primarily in cash and Cyera shares.
Oasis employees are also expected to benefit significantly. The company's employee stock option plan, representing an estimated 10%-15% of the company's equity, is expected to generate proceeds of between $100 million and $150 million. Employees are also expected to receive additional retention packages, including Cyera equity.
Following the acquisition, Oasis will continue to operate as an independent business unit within Cyera, leading the company's non-human identity security business. The two companies' engineering teams will integrate their platforms, while Cyera's global sales organization is expected to accelerate adoption of Oasis's technology among hundreds of large enterprises worldwide.
The acquisition is designed to address one of cybersecurity's fastest-growing challenges: the explosion in the number of AI agents and other non-human identities operating inside enterprise environments. Combining Cyera's data security platform with Oasis's non-human identity management technology will create a unified security platform that connects data security with identity governance.
The importance of the acquisition reflects a broader shift in enterprise computing. In the past, access to corporate systems was dominated by human users. Today, as organizations migrate to the cloud and deploy autonomous AI agents, the number of non-human identities is growing at an unprecedented pace.
In a typical Fortune 500 company, there are now dozens, and in some cases hundreds, of non-human identities for every human employee. These include API keys, service accounts, access tokens, machine identities, and AI agents with broad permissions to access sensitive information, analyze data, and perform actions autonomously.
According to Cyera, the number of non-human identities within Fortune 500 companies has increased by 480% over the past six months alone. As a result, organizations must understand not only the sensitivity of their data but also precisely who, or what, is attempting to access it. Even without an external cyberattack, an AI agent with legitimate permissions could expose sensitive information through an incorrect decision or unintended action.
Cyera was founded in 2021 by CEO Yotam Segev and CTO Tamar Bar-Ilan. The company developed a cloud data security (DSPM) platform that has expanded into AI security and has become one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity software companies in recent years. Earlier this year, Cyera completed a $600 million funding round at a $12 billion valuation.
Oasis Security was founded in 2022 by CEO Danny Brickman and Chief Product Officer Amit Zimerman. The two met during their service in Israel's elite Unit 81. Brickman served for 11 years as part of the Talpiot program, while Zimerman served for approximately seven years. The company developed a platform for securing and governing non-human identities and AI agents, becoming one of the leading companies in the emerging category in less than four years.
Once completed, the Oasis acquisition will bring Cyera's total acquisition spending to approximately $1.35-$1.4 billion. The vast majority of that amount comes from the Oasis deal itself, valued at approximately $1 billion, including an estimated $700 million in cash and the remainder in Cyera shares.
The acquisition follows a string of purchases by Cyera, including Trail Security for $162 million, Ryft for an estimated $100-$130 million, and Genie Security for approximately $50 million. The company has also acquired Shape AI and Otterize in transactions whose financial terms were not disclosed but are estimated to have been worth tens of millions of dollars.
Cyera has financed its aggressive acquisition strategy through successive funding rounds. To date, the company has raised approximately $2.3 billion, giving it the resources to rapidly expand its product portfolio through acquisitions while building an end-to-end AI security platform.
Yotam Segev, Cyera's co-founder and CEO, said: "Every security decision begins with understanding two things: what information needs to be protected, and who, or what, is trying to access it. By joining forces with Oasis, we are bringing these two worlds together into a single platform that will give organizations the control they need to adopt AI securely."
Danny Brickman, co-founder and CEO of Oasis Security, added: "From day one, we recognized that non-human identities would become one of the defining security challenges of the AI era. While Cyera redefined data security, we redefined identity management for the AI era. We share a common vision for the future of cybersecurity, and this combination will allow us to realize that vision faster and at much greater scale."
