Israeli cybersecurity startup Ocean, founded by former teenage hacker and Iron Dome researcher Shay Shwartz, has emerged from stealth mode this week with $28 million in funding to combat the global rise of AI-powered email phishing attacks.
From Elite Defence to Cybersecurity Entrepreneurship
Shay Shwartz is no stranger to the mechanics of email phishing. Having earned money as a hacker during his teenage years, his trajectory changed when he was caught at the age of 16. Realising his cyber talents could be utilised for protection rather than intrusion, he pivoted towards defensive security.
Shwartz subsequently spent a decade in top-tier cybersecurity roles, spearheading critical projects for Israel’s elite military defence and intelligence units, including contributions to the renowned Iron Dome project. He later joined Axis, a startup that was subsequently acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). However, his ultimate ambition was always to build his own venture, a goal he realised two years ago.
Securing $28 Million from Industry Giants
Ocean’s agentic email security platform has launched with $28 million in total backing. The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with key participation from Picture Capital and Cerca Partners.
The startup has also attracted high-profile backing from prominent angel investors. These include Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport, alongside Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael, the co-founders of Armis, which recently completed a $7.75 billion acquisition by ServiceNow.
Why Traditional Email Security Fails Against AI
While established industry players like Proofpoint and Mimecast, alongside newer firms such as Abnormal Security, are designed to intercept standard phishing threats, Shwartz argues that generative AI demands an entirely new defensive paradigm.
Historically, launching a successful spear-phishing campaign required significant manual research, time, and effort, limiting these highly targeted attacks to sophisticated, well-resourced threat actors.
According to Shwartz, artificial intelligence has completely automated this process. Bad actors can now instruct Large Language Models (LLMs) to harvest vast amounts of public data, rapidly profile targets, and generate highly personalised phishing attempts at an unprecedented scale.
An Intelligent Guard for Every Inbox
To counter this threat, Ocean, led by Shwartz and co-founder and CTO Oran Moyal, has developed an AI platform that analyses the deep context of every incoming email to identify sophisticated fraud and impersonation attempts.
Rather than relying on generic models, the startup engineered a proprietary small language model. This model is specifically optimised to evaluate email content, decipher the sender’s underlying intent, and verify it against the unique context of the recipient’s organisation.
The platform is already operational at scale, processing billions of emails monthly for major global clients, including Kayak, Kingston Technology, and Headspace. Shwartz likens the technology to having a security guard stationed at every single door, ensuring the corporate inbox remains a highly secure and hygienic environment.