Upwind, which filters false security alerts in cloud apps so companies can focus on actual risks, raised $300M at a $3.8B valuation, up from $1.5B in January (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Israeli cloud security firm Upwind has secured approximately $300 million in funding, bringing its valuation to around $3.8 billion. The company raised the capital in a Series C round, just eight months after its $250 million Series B round valued it at about $1.5 billion. The infusion of funds marks a $2.3 billion increase in Upwind's valuation since the start of the year, reflecting the ongoing surge of investment in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.

Led by venture capital firms Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV, the latest financing also attracted participation from Craft Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Greylock, Gili Raanan's Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, and Alta Park Capital. Notably, existing investors such as Penny Jar Capital, backed by NBA star Steph Curry, continued to support Upwind.

Earlier this year, Salesforce Ventures invested tens of millions of dollars into Upwind, appreciating the company's valuation from $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion. These rapid-fire investment rounds highlight the growing confidence in Upwind's innovative runtime-first approach to cloud security, which identifies genuine risks amidst the deluge of alerts generated by traditional methods.

Founded in 2022 by Amiram Shachar and former Spot.io executives Liran Polak, Lavi Ferdman, and Tal Zuri, Upwind provides a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that combines security posture management, workload protection, detection and response, and identity security. The company has also partnered with Nvidia to enhance its AI threat detection capabilities, achieving a 95% precision rate in identifying malicious prompts targeting large language models while maintaining real-time performance.