Aim Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup offering enterprises a GenAI security platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. In conjunction with the announcement, Matan Getz, co-founder and CEO, replied to our questions about himself, the company and the product, the funding and future plans.
FinSMEs: Hi Matan, can you tell us a bit more about yourself? What’s your background?
Adir and I honed our cybersecurity skills in the Israeli Defense Force, specifically in the elite intelligence Unit 8200, the renowned hotbed of Israeli cybersecurity innovation. I participated in the military’s specialized leadership training program, Talpiot, and was the Deputy CISO of the IDF. I built the military’s largest data science defensive AI project. As a CIO at Unit 8200, I led an R&D division of 150 engineers, where I made it my goal to drive the secure and safe adoption of AI and big data – foreshadowing my future career, it seems. In Adir, I found the ultimate partner for innovating in the unexplored realm of GenAI security, as he is an award-winning security researcher turned security product leader. Adir was the commander of the IDF’s most elite cybersecurity course, where he led and educated a generation of top security professionals. With a passion for diving head-first into emerging security sectors, Adir pioneered the DSPM market as the field CTO at data security startup, Laminar, recently acquired by Rubrik. He has long been passionate about breaking security and inventing better ways to rebuild it at scale, which is exactly what we’re doing at Aim.
FinSMEs: Let’s speak about Aim Security. What is the market problem you want to solve? What is the real opportunity?
GenAI is revolutionizing the way enterprises work. Its unstoppable adoption and use is a reality that security leaders must contend with, or their business will be left behind. Companies had to choose between increasing their growth and success by leveraging GenAI–and compromising security–or restricting GenAI use–and obstructing productivity. At Aim, we seized the singular opportunity to help security leaders become true business enablers. We built a holistic GenAI security platform that secures all GenAI use cases, allows organizations to connect their private data to LLMs and gives security teams business insights into GenAI use, making them drivers of security and business productivity.
FinSMEs: What are the features differentiating the product from competitors?
Aim Security is specifically tailored for GenAI, built to ensure comprehensive visibility, detection, enforcement and protection against the unique risks GenAI introduces. GenAI is still a nascent, constantly evolving technology and the market is challenged to keep up with its growth. Traditional security solutions have attempted to quickly adjust their offerings to address GenAI risks, but these risks are unique and demand specific mitigation strategies and capabilities that incumbent security tools simply lack. To unlock the power of GenAI, businesses connect their internal data to LLMs, usually in a co-pilot methodology, but this introduces new data security risks and flattens existing authorization models. Aim is a one-stop-shop GenAI security platform, whether it’s for apps and products built in-house, third-party applications used by the enterprise, or apps used directly by employees. Aim allows businesses to securely use their private data with GenAI. As companies adopt various types of GenAI tools and as the number of tools grows, Aim is there to scale with them.
FinSMEs: You just raised a new funding round. Please, tell us more about it.
Adir and I are proud to be backed by industry leaders and visionaries. Our $10M seed round is led by YL Ventures, with participation from CCL (Cyber Club London), Operator Partners, Assaf Rappaport, CEO of Wiz, Shmil Levy, Founding Partner of Sequoia Israel and additional angel investors from Google, Proofpoint and Palo Alto Networks. Our investors gave a vote of confidence to the new approach Aim brought to addressing GenAI risks. We are proud to be backed by the people who led the cloud security revolution. Much like the cloud revolution, a new vertical demands a new approach, and their belief in our innovative thinking was crucial as we built Aim.
FinSMEs: Can you share some numbers and achievements for the business?
In under one year since its founding, Aim has already gained the confidence of numerous customers in various industries, among them highly regulated sectors such as finance and healthcare, defense and digital entertainment, demonstrating the acute need for security for GenAI as this exciting revolution grows. McKinsey & Company’s report on “The State of AI in 2023” states that one-third of respondents use GenAI regularly in at least one business function and 40% of respondents indicate that their organizations plan to increase their investment in AI overall. The GenAI market is only beginning to show its potential for business growth and productivity and the potential for new and unknown security risks will surely grow along with it.
“Collaboration with Aim’s exceptional team has made our onboarding efficient and remarkably illuminating. Not only has Aim helped us verify that sensitive data is not leaked to public GenAI tools, but they also provided a secure alternative, transforming our security team into true business enablers. As a health-tech company, the sensitive and private nature of our assets demands that we utilize the most forward-thinking technologies to enhance our products. With Aim, we are confident about the level of security we provide and can accelerate our GenAI adoption without concern.” Sarah Hendrickson, CISO at Cerebral
“The stringent regulations of the finance industry and our concern for our customers’ data make GenAI adoption challenging. I love the fact that Aim secures the entire breadth of our GenAI use, no matter where it is applied: public SaaS apps, enterprise chats or our own internal developments. Aim provides immense value to multiple stakeholders in our organization, across security, business and legal teams, helping us place and enforce the guardrails that fit our industry regulations and unique needs.” Drew Robertson, CISO at Finance of America
FinSMEs: What are your medium-term plans?
We are seeing an incredible increase in the adoption of Co-pilots by enterprises, indicating a growing need for security innovation in that space, which is one of our most acute use cases. Our plans are to expedite our growth strategy and road map by increasing our commitment to research and development, strengthening our go-to-market initiatives and solidifying our standing as the industry leader in Security for GenAI while helping us focus on the company’s next phase.
