Israeli cybersecurity startup Tenzai has launched out of stealth with a $75 million seed round, setting a record for early-stage funding in the sector. The round was led by Greylock Partners, Lux Capital, and Battery Ventures, with participation from Swish Ventures and prominent angel investors.
Tenzai is positioning itself at the forefront of a new wave in cybersecurity: defending enterprise software against vulnerabilities introduced by AI-generated code. With major technology companies reporting that more than 30% of new code is now written by AI, and enterprises deploying updates multiple times per day, traditional penetration testing methods are struggling to keep pace.
AI hacker for enterprise-scale security
The company’s platform introduces an agentic AI penetration testing system that autonomously hacks, exploits, and fixes vulnerabilities at the speed of AI. Unlike conventional pentesting, which is typically episodic and manual, Tenzai’s system provides continuous, always-on offensive capabilities.
“Pentesting hasn’t changed much since I was a pentester in high school some 25 years ago,” said Pavel Gurvich, co-founder and CEO of Tenzai. “Back then the work was episodic and manual. Today, AI allows us to bring elite, nation-grade offensive capabilities at a scale and speed that were previously impossible. In large enterprises with hundreds of applications that change daily, providing real security assurance is only possible with autonomous AI that can find and fix vulnerabilities at enterprise scale. That’s why we built Tenzai - to bring always-on offensive capabilities so organizations can move fast and stay secure.”
Tenzai was founded by Pavel Gurvich, Ariel Zeitlin, Ofri Ziv, Itamar Tal, and Aner Mazur. Gurvich and Zeitlin previously co-founded Guardicore, acquired by Akamai in 2021 for $600 million. Ziv and Tal were part of Guardicore’s founding team, while Mazur served as founding CPO at Snyk. Collectively, the team brings deep offensive cyber expertise from military intelligence and leading security organizations.
Investor confidence
“AI generated code is creating new cybersecurity risks and challenges for enterprises," said Asheem Chandna, Partner at Greylock Partners. "We are excited to partner with the exceptionally talented team at Tenzai, on their mission to build the industry's leading agentic AI penetration testing platform."
With its record seed funding, Tenzai plans to expand its AI research and security teams, enhance its autonomous offensive capabilities, and accelerate its go-to-market presence in North America and Europe. Early deployments are already underway with enterprises in financial services, healthcare, and technology.