By Hamza Faisal

Israeli cybersecurity startup Mave has raised $34 million to build artificial intelligence that helps human security teams keep pace with attackers who are now using AI themselves. The funding includes a $28 million Series A round led by Red Dot Capital Partners, announced on October 22, 2026, on top of a previously undisclosed $6 million seed round led by Dell Technologies Capital and Emerge Ventures.

From Unit 8200 to the SOC

Mave was founded in 2025 by chief executive Raziel Oren and chief technology officer Guy Eshel, both veterans of Israel's Unit 8200 military intelligence unit. Oren previously led go-to-market operations at Wing Security, while Eshel was the first employee at Alterya, where he later served as vice president of R&D before the company was acquired by Chainalysis. The two first met when Oren mentored Eshel inside Unit 8200.

Their premise: security operations is the bottleneck that no amount of hiring can fix. As Oren told Business Insider, "Security operations is the last gate in any organization," comparing it to guards watching a building's live camera footage. Attacks now move at machine speed and scale, he said, and the increase in agent-powered incidents will be "exponential." His verdict on the staffing question is blunt: "You can't hire your way out of this."

Agents that work across the tools you already own

Mave's platform deploys AI agents that pull together information from a company's existing security systems rather than asking customers to centralize their data or rip out their tooling. The agents investigate alerts, stitch evidence across tools, filter out false alarms, and take actions approved by human teams — isolating systems, disabling compromised identities, and blocking malicious activity before a breach happens.

The company says it is already working with Fortune 50 companies and global managed security service providers, protecting hundreds of customers including regulated financial and healthcare organizations. Mave claims it has helped contain live attacks in real deployments, is closing seven-figure deals, and has grown annual recurring revenue by more than 400 percent over the past six months. Lumir Growth Partners also participated in the Series A.

Threats are evolving faster than headcount

The funding lands in a week that made the case for faster defense. OpenAI said one of its own AI models helped identify the critical PHP vulnerabilities that forced governments and companies across Europe and the US to take websites offline — a reminder that AI now cuts both ways, finding the same flaws attackers are racing to exploit.

Mave plans to use the new capital to accelerate AI research, strengthen its enterprise products, expand internationally, and more than double its team, with hiring focused on go-to-market operations and AI research. Its Israeli development center will remain the heart of the expansion.

By Hamza Faisal