This week, a groundbreaking startup founded by Nir Zuk, the visionary behind Palo Alto Networks, successfully raised $245 million in a convertible note aimed at revolutionizing cybersecurity for organizations unable to shift sensitive data and security operations to cloud platforms. The substantial funding, provided by investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Picture Capital, and Redpoint Ventures, is intended to facilitate the establishment of a comprehensive, autonomous cybersecurity framework capable of operating entirely on-premises.

The Chief Marketing Officer of Cylake, René Bonvanie, remarked on the significant investment, highlighting that it is aimed at building necessary hardware, storage, software, data infrastructure, and cutting-edge artificial intelligence capabilities that will enable the company to cater to organizations that cannot afford to rely on external cloud services for their security infrastructure.

“We previously raised $45 million in March, signaling our commitment to this mission,” Bonvanie noted. “The current goal of raising an additional $245 million emphasizes our intent to expedite product deployment to beta testers by December and wider customer availability by mid-next year.” This strategy underscores the startup’s ambition to establish itself rapidly in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape.

Founded in early 2026 with a workforce of just 31 individuals, Cylake has now accumulated a total of $290 million in funding, following an earlier seed investment round led by Greylock Partners. Nir Zuk’s expertise and experience, having served as the chief technology officer of Palo Alto Networks until August 2025, provides Cylake with a solid foundation in cybersecurity innovation.

Why Highly Regulated Firms Need On-Premises Security Systems

Many highly regulated industries, including financial services and government sectors, find themselves constrained from transferring sensitive information outside their own infrastructures. Bonvanie pointed out a concerning trend where modern cybersecurity vendors have largely neglected offering solutions tailored to these stringent industries. As a result, firms often resort to outdated on-premises solutions from well-known vendors like Splunk, McAfee, and Symantec or cobble together makeshift systems from various open-source components.

“Consider critical infrastructure sectors and governmental agencies, which face a real challenge in securing their systems without cloud dependency,” Bonvanie emphasized. He elaborated that many of these entities operate under regulations mandating that specific data remains within designated jurisdictions, thereby complicating the adaptation of cloud-based security solutions. This regulatory environment leads chief information security officers (CISOs) to reassess not just the architectural frameworks of security systems, but the very nature of their data interaction.

“I’m not interested in customers who are comfortable transmitting their data to public cloud providers,” Bonvanie explained. “My focus is on organizations that either cannot or choose not to take that risk.” This clarity of focus reflects Cylake’s commitment to serving the unique needs of clients with stringent security requirements.

The decision to integrate hardware into their offerings was a strategic one for Cylake. Bonvanie stated that it became evident the capabilities necessary for handling enormous volumes of security data could only be achieved through an independent, robust hardware system. This integration allows Cylake greater control over costs and capacity, enabling clients to run AI models and store security data locally without incurring high cloud storage fees.

“We approached this not from a desire to create hardware, but from a vision of establishing a system capable of managing all of an organization’s data independently,” Bonvanie elaborated. “In our pursuit of this goal, we found that hardware was a necessity.”

What Cylake Plans to Include in Its Security Portfolio

Cylake envisions developing a unified ingestion pipeline directed toward a locally managed data lake, enabling seamless collection, storage, management, and archiving of data from various sources, including endpoints, servers, IoT devices, and third-party security solutions. The primary objective is to equip operators with a holistic view of security activity across the entire organization, thereby eliminating inefficiencies associated with fragmented tools.

“Our goal was to create a remarkable cybersecurity solution that operates effectively on all customer data, rather than leaving them with disparate portions of data across multiple tools,” Bonvanie noted. “We aim to provide one cohesive system with a singular ingestion pipeline, empowering users to access all relevant data from their infrastructure effortlessly.”

Moreover, Cylake plans to offer an extensive array of security services encompassing endpoint, data, IoT, identity, and browser security, effectively phasing out many existing point solutions that clients currently employ. As the system matures, Bonvanie suggested that an increasing proportion of the data managed would be sourced from Cylake’s proprietary technologies, labeled as “firsthand” telemetry.

“We will begin by ingesting both first- and third-hand telemetry, but progressively, our in-house capabilities will dominate,” Bonvanie reassured potential customers. “Clients will be free to integrate any data they desire into our data lake.”

While AI can augment incident investigation processes, Bonvanie underscored a key challenge: Cylake can’t rely on public AI platforms. Sending customer data to external AI providers would contradict the core principles of the company’s sovereign, autonomous security model. Thus, Cylake is committed to developing its own AI capabilities, which will blend open-source models with tailor-made technologies for enterprise use, allowing seamless integration into its security framework.

“We cannot depend on external models from providers like Anthropic or OpenAI,” Bonvanie declared. “We have to design and integrate our proprietary capabilities directly into the system, carefully selecting which models to incorporate as we move forward.” This commitment to innovation underscores Cylake’s vision to forge a new path in the cybersecurity domain, one that prioritizes data sovereignty while enhancing the overall security posture of organizations navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape.