Lasso Security: The Last Independent Israeli LLM-Security Company, Backed by a Former Prime Minister
Lasso Security is the last independent Israeli LLM-security company from the 2021-2023 founding cohort of five. Founded 2023 by Elad Schulman and team. Board includes former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett. Raised $28M. DHS is a customer.
Lasso Security is a Tel Aviv-founded LLM cybersecurity platform built to govern every touchpoint where employees, AI agents, and internal applications interact with large language models. Founded 2023 by Elad Schulman (CEO), Lior Ziv (CTO), Ophir Dror (CPO), and Yuval Abadi (COO). Raised $28 million total — $6 million seed led by Entrée Capital with Samsung Next, plus subsequent rounds with Singtel Innov8, Selah Ventures, ClearSky. Board includes former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. As of June 2026, Lasso is the only independent Israeli LLM-security company from the founding cohort of five.
By The Olam Editorial Team · The Builders · June 2026
Lasso Security's category position
The platform takes a lifecycle approach to GenAI protection across five layers: Discover, Assess, Test, Enforce, Protect. Discovery surfaces every AI tool employees are using — sanctioned or shadow. Assessment scores GenAI risk at the model and prompt level. Testing runs automated red-teaming against AI applications using a library of over 3,000 attack patterns. Enforcement applies policy. Protection runs at the prompt level with sub-50-millisecond classification latency.
The runtime performance metric matters commercially. AI security tools that slow down enterprise AI usage get switched off. Lasso's sub-50-millisecond decision time with stated 99.8% detection accuracy positions the platform as a runtime gate rather than a development-time analyzer. Customer base spans the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, eToro, Kaltura, Artlist, Optibus, Guesty, Telit, Nayax.
Lasso's Intent Security Framework — a behavioral baseline approach designed for agentic AI — extends classical content inspection by analyzing the intent behind AI interactions, not just the content. The framework reads behavior patterns from both human users and autonomous agents, detects deviations from baseline, and triggers enforcement before malicious activity completes. Industry recognition has followed: Global InfoSec Awards Winner 2026, InfoSec Award 2025, and Forum IT 100 inclusion.
Lasso Security's founders
Elad Schulman founded Segasec, a brand-protection and threat-intelligence platform acquired by Mimecast in 2019 for approximately $50 million. He served as Mimecast's VP of Brand Protection following the acquisition, then invested in early-stage Israeli cyber — including a seed position in Dig, which Palo Alto Networks acquired for approximately $300 million in 2023. Schulman founded Lasso in July 2023. Bar-Ilan University BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics; MBA in Marketing and Information Systems from the same institution.
Lior Ziv joined as CTO and was Schulman's first hire — the two had worked together previously at Segasec. Ophir Dror joined as Chief Product Officer; he served as an IDF reservist called up after October 7, 2023, leading Lasso's parallel humanitarian operation that raised $1.5 million and supplied over 800 packages of protective gear and field medicine to IDF units in partnership with the Duvdevan Foundation and the National Union of Israeli Students. Yuval Abadi rounded out the founding team as COO.
Lasso Security's board and the Bennett position
Lasso's board includes Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister of Israel. Bennett's earlier career was in Israeli cyber — he co-founded and ran Cyota, an anti-fraud platform RSA acquired in 2005 for approximately $145 million. The Bennett board seat connects Lasso to one of the original Israeli cyber commercial successes and to a public figure with operational understanding of how Israeli cyber companies sell into U.S. enterprises and U.S. government.
Dean Sysman, co-founder of Axonius, also sits on the Lasso board. Axonius reached a $2.6 billion valuation as a cyber asset management platform — making Sysman one of the most credible operating directors in Israeli cyber. The board composition signals that Lasso is being built for a category-leadership outcome, not a quick strategic exit.
Lasso Security's standing in the cohort
Five Israeli companies founded between 2021 and 2023 defined enterprise LLM security: Aim Security, Apex Security, Astrix Security, Prompt Security, Lasso Security. Four exited to U.S. or Israeli-founded strategic acquirers between May 2025 and May 2026. Aim to Cato Networks for approximately $200 million. Apex to Tenable for over $105 million. Prompt to SentinelOne for approximately $250 million. Astrix to Cisco for approximately $300–400 million.
Lasso is the last independent company in the cohort. Press reports through 2025 named Lasso among the next likely acquisition targets, with reported overtures from Check Point, Zscaler, and F5. As of June 2026, no deal has been disclosed. The Bennett-Sysman board composition, the $28 million capital base, and the Department of Homeland Security customer reference suggest Lasso is positioned to either lead the category as a standalone or to clear a higher exit multiple by waiting.
Lasso Security's strategic bet
Schulman has framed the company's ambition publicly: Lasso intends to become to GenAI security what Wiz became to cloud security. The comparison is structurally aggressive. Wiz was founded by ex-Microsoft cloud security operators with $1.9 billion in eventual outside funding, exiting to Google for $32 billion. Lasso is founded by a serial brand-protection operator with $28 million in funding, competing in a category that has already consolidated four of its first-mover peers into U.S. platform companies.
What makes the bet plausible is the runtime gap the consolidation left open. Cato, Tenable, Cisco, and SentinelOne each absorbed one Israeli LLM-security cohort member. None of them has yet integrated the acquired technology into a fully unified runtime platform that can compete with a purpose-built independent. Lasso's window is the gap between acquisition close and full platform integration. If Lasso can scale ARR and customer count before the U.S. acquirers finish their internal integration projects, the category leadership outcome remains in play.
The other variable is October 7. The Lasso founding team's response to the war — the $1.5 million humanitarian logistics operation, the reservist deployments, the boycott of Paddy Cosgrave's Web Summit investment after Cosgrave's anti-Israel statements — sits adjacent to the commercial story but signals the texture of Israeli cyber operating under wartime conditions. The companies that came through that period and kept building are the companies the next decade of Israeli cyber will be built around. Lasso is one of them. The Olam Index 2026 captures the current visibility gap; the question for Lasso is whether the independent runway is long enough to fix it before the U.S. strategics complete their integrations.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Lasso Security?
Lasso Security was founded in 2023 by four co-founders: Elad Schulman (CEO), Lior Ziv (CTO), Ophir Dror (CPO), and Yuval Abadi (COO). Schulman previously founded Segasec, which Mimecast acquired in 2019.
Who sits on Lasso Security's board?
The board includes former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett — who previously co-founded the cyber company Cyota, acquired by RSA in 2005 — and Dean Sysman, co-founder of Axonius.
How much has Lasso Security raised?
Lasso has raised $28 million across multiple rounds, starting with a $6 million seed led by Entrée Capital and Samsung Next in November 2023. Additional investors include Singtel Innov8, Selah Ventures, and ClearSky.
What does Lasso Security do?
Lasso provides end-to-end LLM security across five layers: Discover, Assess, Test, Enforce, Protect. The platform runs runtime decisions in under 50 milliseconds with stated 99.8% detection accuracy.
Is Lasso Security being acquired?
As of June 2026, Lasso remains independent. Press reports through 2025 named Lasso among the next likely acquisition targets, with reported interest from Check Point, Zscaler, and F5. No deal has been disclosed.
Who are Lasso Security's main customers?
Customers include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, eToro, Kaltura, Artlist, Optibus, Guesty, Telit, and Nayax.
