Zenity Gets $38M Series B for Agentic AI Security Expansion

An agentic AI security startup led by a former Microsoft product manager raised $38 million to secure low-code, no-code and generative AI development.

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Tel Aviv, Israel-based Zenity will use the Series B proceeds to expand research and development, scale its product to support both security and digital transformation initiatives, and deepen partnerships with major platforms like Microsoft and Salesforce, according to co-founder and CEO Ben Kliger. He said the firm will focus on securing AI-driven solutions used by non-technical people within large organizations.

“When we’re looking at everything that’s happening around us and within our current customer base and prospects, it is a very significant evolution,” Kliger told Information Security Media Group. “It’s time for us to accelerate significantly across all of the departments at the company be able to meet the crazy market demand that we’re already seeing.”

Zenity, founded in 2021, employs 65 people and has raised more than $55 million, which includes a $16.5 million Series A funding round in September 2023 led by Intel Capital. The company has been led since inception by Kliger, who previously spent five-and-a-half years at Microsoft, culminating in nearly three years as product leader for the Seattle-area software giant’s cloud workload protection platform (see: Navigating AI-Based Data Security Risks in Microsoft Copilot).

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The company’s most recently funding round was led by Third Point Ventures and DTCP, who Kliger sees as strategic partners for penetrating the North American and European markets. The experience of both venture capital firms with category creating companies aligns with Zenity’s mission to secure emerging technology ecosystems, according to Kliger.

“They both have experience with category-creating companies, which is exactly what we’re doing here,” Kliger said. “More than that, both of these VCs enable us with a great reach in our target markets. Third Point Ventures is very well connected in the North American market, with heavy ties into financial services and healthcare, like huge organizations. Of course, these are target verticals for us.”

Zenity will expand its AI agent and Copilot development support for platforms like Microsoft, Salesforce and ServiceNow and scale its platform to support other enterprise-grade systems like OpenAI, Google, SAP and Oracle. Zenity will support new deployment models to meet specific needs in heavily regulated markets and deepen its expertise in securing complex data models and connectivity in AI ecosystems.

“We need to support more than just security teams within those organizations,” Kliger said. “We also need to support digital transformation initiatives that are being led in those organizations. It means that we need to have more features and more capabilities in the platform.”

Zenity’s approach to securing agentic AI builds on its application security expertise, Kliger said, focusing on non-technical people in organizations who are building or using AI applications without traditional development safeguards. He said the company applies application security principles to generative AI to protect users and ensure compliant deployment practices from users without technical backgrounds.

“All of a sudden, there is a new world where business users who are not developers, who don’t have CI/CD, there are no controls around how they’re leveraging these capabilities, whether it’s low-code or generative AI,” he said. “It’s being done by non-developers, people who are not only not security-savvy, they’re not even tech-savvy. That’s why we are very unique, and that’s why it’s a very unique space.”

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Zenity plans to broaden its market reach, particularly with the U.S. federal government, by developing hybrid and on premise deployment options tailored to highly regulated environments, according to Kliger. This strategy aligns with the significant demand for generative AI capabilities in the public sector, which Kliger said requires a unique approach compared to traditional SaaS models.

“Many federal organizations use not just a SaaS-based solution, but they also need dedicated federal-based deployment that will require us to build the product a little differently from the way in how the data is being shared with us,” Kliger said.

Zenity will also use the $38 million to ramp up its North American market presence and build strategic partnerships with major technology ecosystems, aiming to align its security solutions with platforms like Microsoft and Salesforce and work closely with security vendors, Kliger said. Increased focus on North American enterprise clients and tech partnerships are seen as crucial for scaling Zenity’s market reach.

“This is a big opportunity to play with the big platforms, to go to market with Microsoft, with Salesforce, with ServiceNow, and basically build a story that is, ‘We are securing what they’re trying to push to their organizations or to their clients,'” Kliger said.

Success metrics for Zenity include client acquisition in key verticals like financial services and healthcare, team scaling, and operational success metrics to ensure responsible growth, according to Kliger. He said Zenity’s KPIs reflect the need to expand quickly while maintaining business health, with specific hiring targets to support growing demand in sales, marketing, product development, and security research.

“We’re going to track those growth KPIs really closely to make sure that, not only are we going fast enough, but that we’re also doing that responsibly, because at the end of the day, we need to build a healthy business,” Kliger said.