Upwind Security’s Rise to a $1.5 Billion Cloud Cybersecurity Leader | Ukraine news
Upwind Security’s Rise to a $1.5 Billion Cloud Cybersecurity Leader | Ukraine news
https://mezha.net/eng/bukvy/upwind-security-s-rise-to-a-1-5-billion-cloud-cybersecurity-leader/amp/
Publish Date: 2026-01-29 08:08:00
Source Domain: mezha.net
Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. Upwind Security has transformed in four years from a startup into a full-fledged cloud cybersecurity player with a valuation of $1.5 billion. Among the company’s clients are Siemens, Peloton, Roku, Wix, Nextdoor, and Nubank. Co-founder and CEO Amirim Shahar says the road to such a milestone was far from easy. According to market insiders, after the $250 million Series B round Shahar recalled that three years ago the team spent hours asking themselves whether they were moving in the right direction, and 80% of the time it seemed not. “Three years ago we spent hours asking ourselves whether we were moving in the right direction, and 80% of the time it seemed that we weren’t.” – Amirim Shahar “At first we constantly doubted whether the market needed our solution, whether it would integrate into larger systems, or whether customers would adopt it,” he recalls. Developing the new approach was challenging: many companies were used to deploying certain agents on machines, but they don’t like that path. Runtime security: why internal context matters Upwind calls this approach ‘runtime’ security: prioritizing real-time alerting and remediation of threats for active services. It is an internally oriented view of cloud security, where signals from internal sources, such as network requests and API traffic, serve as context to help security teams recognize urgent risks and those that can wait. The team acknowledges that previously they did not have traditional security industry experience: initially they built and sold Spot.io to NetApp for about $450 million in 2020. “After joining NetApp following the Spot acquisition, I personally felt how complex cloud security is.” – Amirim Shahar Over time, Upwind realized that the context of internal signals is more useful for security teams than external approaches. Therefore, the company focused on building a broad integrated platform and expanding applications in cloud security. Since 2024 the company has shown significant growth: 900% year-over-year revenue growth and an expanding client base, entering new markets – Australia, India, Singapore, and Japan alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. The $250 million Series B round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Picture Capital. The funds will be used to develop the product, enter new markets, strengthen AI capabilities in the core cloud security platform, and expand developer tools to prevent configuration errors even before production.
