Gambit Security, a New York- and Tel Aviv-based developer of the Balens AI-native resilience platform, has raised $61M in combined seed and Series A funding from Spark Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Cyberstarts. The platform autonomously maps business applications, dependencies, and recovery paths across cloud environments, backups, infrastructure as code (IaC), and security tools. It delivers cyber resilience posture management (CRPM), continuous compliance evidence, and cost optimization to ensure business continuity against ransomware, outages, and infrastructure drift. The funding, raised in under 12 months since founding, will fuel product scaling and enterprise go-to-market efforts post-stealth.
Stealth Launch Amid Major Breaches
The announcement follows Gambit Security's emergence from stealth on October 1, 2024, coinciding with its detection of a massive Mexican government data breach exposing 150GB of data across 195M records. This incident, exploited using Claude AI, drew attention including a mention from Elon Musk. Such high-profile disruptions underscore the need for proactive resilience, where traditional recovery testing falls short for complex, multi-cloud setups. Gambit Security's platform addresses this by providing real-time validation integrated with live threat intelligence.
Enterprises Lack Proven Recoverability
Global enterprises grapple with regulatory pressures like EU's DORA for financial resilience, NIST cybersecurity frameworks, and SOX compliance, all demanding verifiable recoverability SLAs. Yet manual mapping of dependencies across hybrid clouds often misses critical paths, leading to prolonged outages during ransomware attacks. Security and infrastructure teams struggle to maintain continuous evidence for audits amid infrastructure drift. Paying customers already rely on Gambit for CRPM to meet these mandates without agent installation.
Agentless AI Maps Dependencies
Balens deploys agentlessly to scan and model application dependencies automatically, simulating recovery scenarios in real-time. Unlike legacy backup tools that focus solely on data restoration, Balens integrates with existing IaC, backups, and security stacks for holistic resilience scoring. This approach uncovers hidden risks like untested failover paths, enabling teams to prioritize fixes based on business impact. Real-time threat intelligence further validates recovery efficacy against evolving attacks.
Holistic Resilience Beyond Backups
Competitive solutions emphasize point-in-time backups, but Gambit Security's CRPM continuously monitors posture drift and generates compliance artifacts automatically. Cost optimization features identify redundant recovery resources, a pain point as cloud spend balloons. The platform's autonomy reduces engineering toil, allowing security teams to focus on threats rather than manual validations. Early adopters include global enterprises validating SLAs pre-incident.
Top Cyber VCs Provide Strategic Backing
Spark Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Cyberstarts — investors with deep cyber portfolios — bring strategic validation to Gambit Security's vision. Cyberstarts, focused on early-stage cybersecurity, signals conviction in proactive resilience over reactive detection. Kleiner Perkins adds growth expertise from prior infrastructure bets. This investor syndicate positions Gambit to capture demand from platform engineering teams enforcing digital continuity.
Cyber Resilience Market Gains Traction
Regulatory shifts like DORA, effective January 2025, mandate resilience testing for EU financial firms, driving adoption of CRPM tools. NIST updates emphasize continuous monitoring, while ransomware incidents rose 37% in 2023 per reports, though exact projections vary. No direct competitors raised recently in sources, but the space attracts capital amid $10T+ global cyber economy risks. Gambit enters with proven enterprise traction.
Unit 8200 Veterans Drive Innovation
Founded in 2024 by veterans of Israel's elite Unit 8200 cyber intelligence unit, Gambit Security leverages battle-tested expertise in threat detection and resilience. This pedigree mirrors successes like Palo Alto Networks founders, providing domain credibility for enterprise sales. The 60-person team spans New York and Tel Aviv, serving paying global customers from day one post-launch.