Cloud security enforcement platform startup Aryon Security Inc. today launched and announced that it has raised $9 million in funding to scale up its platform.

The company’s platform enables proactive cloud risk prevention through artificial intelligence-powered policy enforcement. Founded by alumni of the elite “Matzov” unit in the Israel Defense Forces, it’s seeking to disrupt the global cloud security market from a reactive, “deploy and detect” model to one governed by policy enforcement before rampant misconfiguration and data protection errors enter the cloud.

The platform addresses issues such as 99% of cloud security breaches stemming from human errors and misconfigurations, plus the fact that 60% of organizations cite preventing such mistakes as a top priority in their cloud security strategy.

Aryon Security argues that existing cloud security solutions focus on finding risks like misconfigurations or unprotected data through scans after deployment in cloud production environments. Doing so creates problems such as leaving the organization at risk until problems are found and fixed and resolving problems after mistakes enter the cloud is much more difficult and time-consuming, increasing the mean time to respond and wasting resources.

Instead, it takes a different approach by preventing risks before, not after, anything is deployed to the cloud. The platform enables security teams to enforce granular and precise AI-powered policies that are based on active risks in the organization, giving them full control of what is entering the cloud.

The company claims the platform is technology-agnostic and adapts to a given organization’s existing technological stack, people and processes, whether the organization is using “infrastructure as code” or manual definition, in-house or third-party cloud management. The result is consistent cloud protection that stops risks caused by human errors and misconfigurations before they enter the cloud.

Viola Ventures Management Ltd. and Blumberg Capital led the seed round. Shlomo Kramer of Check Point Software Technologies Inc., Imperva Inc. and Cato Networks Ltd., participated, as well as Maty Siman, founder of Checkmarx Ltd., and Rubi Aronashvili, founder of CYE.

“Our goal is to help even the most conservative organizations to accelerate their cloud transition safely, with full control and no disruption to business operations,” said Aryon Security co-founder and Chief Executive Ron Arbel. “We are proud of the trust placed in us by so many experienced and pioneering investors in the cybersecurity and cloud sectors and are confident in our ability to deliver a truly revolutionary product in cloud security.”

Photo: Aryon Security