Israeli cybersecurity startup Zero Networks Ltd. announced today that it has raised $20 million in new funding to recruit development, marketing and sales personnel.

Founded in 2019, Zero Networks aims to tackle what the company calls one of the most complex problems in cybersecurity: preventing attacks from moving laterally within an organization’s network to exfiltrate data or launch ransomware attacks.

The company argues that existing segmentation solutions designed to address the problem are complex, labor intensive and do not provide comprehensive protection. By comparison, the startup offers a software-as-a-service solution that learns network traffic and creates security policies that restrict user and machine access to only necessary assets. The platform also deploys multifactor authentication for access to sensitive protocols to stop hackers moving laterally through an organization.

Key features include the ability to reduce security tools footprints by consolidating network solutions, the ability to simplify security operations by lowering tactical activity and the ability to deploy MFA everywhere, including hard-to-reach assets such as custom applications and legacy protocols. Zero Networks also allows organizations to securely connect remote employees and third parties to their network with zero trust principles and maximum network performance.

The company claims customers across the U.S., Europe and the Middle East spanning investment banks, retailers, manufacturing companies, hospitals, law officers, telcos and even a global container shipping company.

The Series B round was led by U.S. Venture Partners Inc., with Venrock Associates L.P, F2 Venture Capital LP, Pico Venture Partners LLC and Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former chief technology officer of CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., also participating.

“There are only two really huge markets in cybersecurity,” Alperovitch said in a statement. “As co-founder of CrowdStrike, I am privileged to have played a part in disrupting one of them — endpoint security. Now, I’m excited to help Zero Networks revolutionize the other huge market that is ripe for disruption — network security.”

Including the new funding, Zero Networks has raised $45 million to date.

Image: Zero Networks