Onyx Security, an Israeli cyber company that develops a security and control platform for enterprise AI agents, has raised $35 million in a Series A funding round led by Conviction, an AI-native venture capital firm founded in 2022 by former Greylock general partner Sarah Guo. The company’s total funding now stands at $40 million, including a $5 million seed round from CyberStarts in 2024 and donations from leading angels in the cyber and AI fields.
Founded in 2024 by Maxime Barr Kogan and Gil Elbaz. Bar Kogan is a cyber security leader and experienced technology executive who served in the IDF’s Unit 8200. Elbaz is a veteran AI researcher who previously reported to Nvidia’s CTO and is a former member of one of the IDF’s AI research units.
The company currently employs more than 70 people in Israel, the United States, and Canada.
“We want to make sure that our AI agents are not too independent. Most companies focus only on security, which is important to us, but in addition to that we define what is allowed and what is not allowed for AI,” Bar Kogan told Calcalist. “This helps organizations understand the benefits of AI investments. If I were the CEO of an organization today, I would want to demonstrate the progress in AI. One of the painful problems in the past is that while the investments were visible, the returns were not. Today, this is changing. In areas like code and customer interactions, we are already seeing tangible gains.”
Commenting on Onyx’s expansion, Kogan added, “We have a sales team in the US and will be moving there soon. We are investing heavily in research and development and are significantly expanding our team. There are huge opportunities in our space and we are attracting more companies to innovate. Our goal is to tackle problems at the CEO level and deliver tangible value.”
In recent years, AI agents have become an integral part of an organization’s operational infrastructure. They are deployed across software development, IT automation, customer service, and other business processes. Unlike traditional software, AI agents operate dynamically and make real-time decisions based on external data and changing context. This is a new layer of risk that existing security systems struggle to manage.
Onyx is developing a platform that provides both control and security for AI agents within organizations. The system continuously discovers AI assets and defines and enforces usage policies in real-time, allowing you to securely scale your AI deployment. At the heart of the platform is the Onyx Guardian Agent. It is a mechanism that can identify anomalous activity and block dangerous actions, reduce privileges, or require human approval before performing tasks.
“Organizations’ transition to a world where AI systems become part of their operational infrastructure creates an entirely new attack surface,” said Hila Zigman, Partner at Cyberstarts. “These are not just software tools that need to be protected; they are systems that make decisions, access sensitive information, and are integrated into critical business processes. From the first moment, Maxim and Gil understood the depth of this change, transforming traditional tools into new ones. It was clear that we were building a solution designed for the AI era, rather than trying to adapt to new realities. We believe the Onyx team is very well positioned to become the market leader in AI security for large enterprises.”
