Trump AI czar’s investment firm leads $33 million funding in Israeli cyber startup

Israeli cybersecurity startup Daylight Security has pulled in new investment of $33 million, led by Craft Ventures, which was co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks, the founders said Tuesday.

Investors such as Bain Capital Ventures and Maple VC also participated in the funding round. In addition, prominent cybersecurity founders and angel investors, including Assaf Rappaport of Wiz; Ofer Smadari, Leonid Belkind, and Eldad Livni of Torq; and Tamar Bar-Ilan and Yotam Segev of Cyera, joined the round.

The round brings Daylight’s total funding to $40 million, raised in less than six months since it came out of stealth in July this year.

Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Daylight was founded in late 2024 by Hagai Shapira and Eldad Rodich, who met during their military service in the Israel Defense Forces’ vaunted technological unit Unit 8200.

Talking to The Times of Israel, Shapira said that the two founders built a platform to protect businesses and organizations, blending autonomous artificial intelligence agents with human analysts, as cyber threats are evolving faster than traditional security operations centers can handle.

Security teams face a rapidly growing cyberthreat landscape with bad actors increasingly using AI to become more adaptive and mimic legitimate user behavior, which in turn makes them harder to detect with traditional security methods. Cyberattacks rose 50% year-over-year, while the average cost of a data breach stood at $4.4 million, according to an IBM report.

“AI is a great enabler and force multiplier, but it doesn’t replace human experts when it comes to the level of trust and cyberthreat protection needed for organizations,” said Shapira. “AI models are going to be improving, but we don’t know at what pace, and we don’t know when they are going to be smarter than a person, or if that ever happens at all.”

“We are utilizing AI, just in a hybrid manner, working with humans and AI agents in tandem,” said Shapira.

Daylight’s platform is powered by autonomous AI agents that ingest data and detect complex cyberthreats in real time, while still relying on experienced human analysts for validation of findings and to take action.

“Having the support of some of the industry’s top founders and global investors strengthens our belief that this is where the future of cybersecurity is headed,” said Shapira.

At the end of 2024, US President Donald Trump appointed Craft’s co-founder Sacks as his White House AI and crypto czar to reshape US policy on digital currency and AI regulation. Since the venture capital firm launched in 2017, Craft has invested in some of the most iconic tech teams who built prominent companies including Facebook, SpaceX, Palantir, Slack, Airbnb, and Uber.

Shapira said that the proceeds of the newly raised capital will be used to support the startup’s US expansion plans, development of its AI-based security operations platform, and the launch of new AI-driven solutions for identity threat response and cloud workload protection.

“Security leaders are eager to integrate GenAI and agents within their operations,” said Kevin Gabura, partner at Craft Ventures. “Daylight’s MDR [managed detection and response service] is a turnkey, high-impact way to accomplish that, with dozens of organizations already on board.”

Headquartered in Tel Aviv with offices in the US and Singapore, the startup employs a global team of 25 workers, including analysts. Among its dozens of customers spread across the US and Europe are The Motley Fool, Cresta, and McKinsey Investment Office.