Ex-IDF cyber commanders launch Astelia, secure $25 million Series A to combat AI-era threats
The Israeli startup aims to cut through millions of vulnerabilities to pinpoint real, exploitable risks.
Cybersecurity startup Astelia has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures, with participation from Team8 and Holly Ventures. The company currently employs more than 30 people across Israel and the United States.
Astelia develops a security exposure management platform designed to help organizations prioritize and mitigate cyber risks more effectively. The company was founded in late 2024 as part of Team8’s Venture Creation model, which also led Astelia’s $10 million Seed round alongside Holly Ventures.
The company was founded by Alon Noy, who serves as CEO; Nadav Ostrovsky, CTO; and Roy Rajwan, CPO. Noy, a graduate of the Talpiot program, served approximately 15 years in the IDF, where he led operational units in Unit 8200 and headed the National Red Team. Ostrovsky, also a Talpiot graduate, served in the IDF’s Matzov unit alongside Rajwan.
Together, the three led advanced cyber operations aimed at strengthening Israel’s defensive capabilities, including the development and implementation of innovative defense methods used during the Swords of Iron war. As part of the National Red Team, they conducted proactive attack simulations to test the resilience of IDF systems and critical national infrastructure, working in cooperation with U.S. Cyber Command. For their contributions to strengthening Israel’s most sensitive defense systems, all three were awarded the Israel Security Award by the President of Israel.
In a conversation with Calcalist, Noy said that the software security landscape has been significantly reshaped by cloud computing and AI. “We focus on managing exposure across third-party systems and external infrastructure. We identify vulnerabilities in the broader attack surface, an area where I don’t see AI-native coding platforms fully addressing the challenge. The need for a system like ours is only intensifying.”
Astelia competes with companies such as Rapid7 and Tenable but argues that traditional vulnerability management platforms are not fully adapted to the AI era. “The number of vulnerabilities is enormous, and attackers’ ability to exploit them is greater than ever,” Noy said. “When I led red team operations, I wish we had these capabilities. We were often able to bypass large security vendors because they failed to identify AI-related weaknesses.”
According to Noy, legacy tools generate overwhelming numbers of alerts. “Older products show thousands or even millions of vulnerabilities. We identify the small percentage, roughly 2%, that pose an immediate and critical risk. Many customers initially adopt our product alongside existing tools, and some eventually replace the legacy systems entirely.”
He added that today’s threat landscape leaves little room for delay. “When a vulnerability is disclosed, attackers exploit it almost immediately. Organizations no longer have weeks to respond. Some companies have been breached simply because they failed to prioritize vulnerabilities properly, and they come to us after an incident.”
The new funding will be used primarily to accelerate go-to-market efforts in the United States and expand hiring there. At the same time, Astelia plans to double its Israel-based R&D team, largely composed of professionals with backgrounds similar to the National Red Team, by the end of the year, ahead of a potential next funding round.
Unlike traditional tools that rely on generic scanning and statistical risk scoring, Astelia’s platform analyzes millions of vulnerabilities and isolates those that present real, immediate exploitability within a specific organization’s environment. The system maps network topology and existing security controls, and uses AI agents to evaluate how each vulnerability could realistically be exploited.
In some cases, the platform has reduced an organization’s exposure list from more than three million vulnerabilities to just 30 that required urgent attention.
