Orion Security launches from stealth with $6M to secure enterprise data from insider threats using generative AI

The platform automates data loss prevention (DLP) by using artificial intelligence to understand and map business processes, addressing a critical challenge faced by modern enterprises

Orion Security, the AI-powered data protection platform, today announced a $6 million Seed funding round led by Pico Partners and FXP with participation from Underscore VC and cybersecurity leaders including the founders of Perimeter 81 and the CISO of Elastic. Founded by CEO Nitay Milner, former product leader at Cisco-acquired Epsagon, and CTO Yonatan Kreiner, former application security lead at WalkMqe, Orion is already used by leading technology companies.

Data exfiltration by insiders, both intentional and inadvertent, is a critical cybersecurity threat for enterprises. The rise of generative AI has significantly amplified these risks, as highlighted by Samsung banning employees from using ChatGPT after internal source code was leaked, and coming to the fore again with DeepSeek’s growing popularity. The threat extends beyond accidental exposure, as demonstrated by North Korean state-sponsored groups placing fake IT employees within organizations to steal sensitive data. With the average cost of breaches rising to nearly $5M in 2024, data protection has become the top challenge for CISOs in dynamic cloud environments where traditional security perimeters are increasingly obsolete.

Orion Security addresses these challenges by fundamentally changing how organizations protect their sensitive data. Rather than relying on rigid rules and manual policies, Orion’s platform automatically learns and understands how data normally flows within an organization. This context-aware approach allows Orion to accurately distinguish between legitimate business activities and potential data theft or exposure, whether intentional or accidental.

“Today’s data protection tools are failing because they lack the crucial business context needed to understand what’s truly risky,” said Nitay Milner, CEO and co-founder of Orion Security. “By using AI to map and understand an organization’s operational DNA, we’re enabling a new generation of data protection that can accurately distinguish between legitimate business workflows and potential data theft, without burdening already overstretched security teams.”

“The data protection market is at a critical inflection point, demanding solutions that go beyond basic data lineage to truly understand how modern businesses operate,” said Tal Yatsiv, General Partner at PICO Venture Partners. “Nitay’s background in observability and data tracing at Epsagon gives Orion the perfect foundation to not just track data movement, but to understand its business context. Combined with Yonatan’s extensive cybersecurity experience, this team is uniquely positioned to deliver the next generation of data protection.”

“AI is creating a watershed moment for data protection, and Orion Security is at the forefront of this transformation,” said Gil Zimmermann, Partner at FXP. “As founders of CloudLock, a data protection company that was acquired by Cisco in 2016, we intimately understand the challenges of data protection and the limitations of traditional tools. Orion’s AI-powered approach solves the core challenges we faced for years — the lack of business context and overwhelming manual work. This is the future of data security we envisioned but which couldn’t be built a decade ago.”

Under the hood, Orion’s platform connects to an organization’s cloud services, browsers, and devices to create a comprehensive map of how data moves throughout the business. The platform’s Indicators of Leakage (IOL) engine utilizes proprietary reasoning models to analyze patterns in data movement and usage while leveraging LLM classification to understand context. It automatically detects potential data breaches, while seamlessly integrating with existing security tools. This approach enables Orion to identify risky activities without overwhelming security teams with false alerts, all while requiring minimal configuration and maintenance.

Credit: Tammy Montag