Salesforce Ventures invests tens of millions in Upwind at $1.6 billion valuation
New investment comes just two months after $250 million round, signaling continued investor confidence in AI-driven cloud security.
Upwind Security has raised tens of millions of dollars from Salesforce Ventures at a $1.6 billion valuation, a modest increase from the $1.5 billion valuation it secured in its $250 million Series B round announced in January.
The investment, first referenced last week by CEO Amiram Shachar without financial details, now appears to be a meaningful extension of that round, underscoring continued investor demand for companies positioned around artificial intelligence and cloud security.
The timing highlights the pace at which Upwind’s valuation has climbed. The company was valued at between $800 million and $900 million in late 2024, before jumping to $1.5 billion in January. The latest investment pushes it slightly higher still, just weeks later.
Founded in 2022 by Shachar and his former colleagues from Spot.io, Upwind develops a cloud security platform designed to monitor live environments rather than relying on static scans. The company’s “runtime-first” approach is aimed at helping enterprises identify which vulnerabilities are actually exploitable, reducing the volume of irrelevant alerts.
Upwind said it has recorded approximately 900% revenue growth and a 200% increase in customers over the past year. Its client base includes Siemens, Peloton, Roku and Nubank.
The company operates in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) category, combining multiple security functions, such as posture management, workload protection, detection and response, and identity security, into a single system.
Its positioning has been reinforced by partnerships with major cloud providers. Upwind is integrated with Amazon Web Services as a select CNAPP partner within AWS Security Hub, allowing customers to deploy its platform within Amazon’s broader security framework. It has also partnered with Microsoft to provide runtime security for Azure environments.
Beyond cloud infrastructure, the company has been working with Nvidia on securing artificial intelligence systems. Upwind said research conducted with Nvidia shows it can detect malicious large language model prompts with about 95% precision while maintaining real-time performance, addressing risks such as prompt injection and data exfiltration.
In a post announcing the Salesforce investment, Shachar described a broader shift in cloud security, arguing that the market is moving toward systems capable of analyzing activity in real time rather than relying on snapshots. He said the ability to distinguish between theoretical vulnerabilities and real-world risk is becoming critical as cloud environments grow more complex and increasingly shaped by AI.
