Israel and cybersecurityTwo Israeli startups with innovative cybersecurity solutions raise combined $25 million

Two Israeli cybersecurity startups, launched by veterans of the IDF technology units, announced that, separately, they had raised a combined $25 million from investors.

Tel Avib-based Adallom, whose solution accumulates users’ behavioral data in order to protect databases, users, said on Monday that a group of investors led by Index Ventures and including Sequoia Capital Israel had invested $15 million in the company.

 Haaretz quotes sources to say that the investment is based on an estimate of Adallom at $100 million. The company said it would use the funds to expand its sales force and its Tel Aviv-based development team.

On Tuesday, Aorato, whose product watches for suspicious usage of employee credentials – for example, multiple guessing attempts — said it had raised $10 million from investors led by the U.S. venture

capital fund Accel Partners, and which include Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Glilot Capital Partners, and Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, the cofounders of startup Trusteer, which was acquired last year by IBM for $650 million. Glilot invested $1 million in the startup in 2012.

Adallom has developed a system which monitors how software applications like the customer relationship management program Salesforce, Google apps, and Microsoft Office 360 are used, and protects data security. It directs data traffic which comes from the servers of software service providers to servers the system controls with global cloud computing service providers.

Adallom was founded in 2012 by CEO Assaf Rapaport, CTO Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik, vice president for research and development. The company launched its data security solution last November. Haaretz notes that several months ago, the solution, while still in the testing stage, uncovered a security flaw in Office 365, which the company reported to Microsoft.

“Our solution enables organizations to move to the cloud without giving up their security and compliance with regulatory standards,” Rapaport said. “It returns to organizational system managers the control over activity that they had before.”

As is the case with more than a few Israeli cybersecurity startups, the founders of Adallom’s met while serving in the IDF’ signal intelligence corps Unit 8200 and the Talpiot program for soldiers with outstanding IT abilities. The startup has twenty employees, many of whom themselves Unit 8200 alumni.

The company also has a sales and marketing office in Menlo Park, California,, which has five employees, including Rapaport.

The company had earlier raised $4.5 million from Sequoia and Zohar Zisapel, the Israeli angel investor and founder of RAD Data Communications.

Aorato was founded in 2011 by CEO Idan Plotnik, his brother Ohad Plotnik, and Michael Dolinsky, all of them veterans of IDF intelligence units. The three had earlier formed the startup Foreity, a Microsoft security subcontractor that was acquired in 2012.

“The timing could not be more appropriate to launch Aorato into the cybersecurity market. [The year] 2013 showed the world the risks of advanced threats in parallel to the implications of insiders’ access to sensitive corporate data,” Plotnik told Haaretz, referring to the Edward Snowden’s leaks of secret government information.