Upwind Security passed on a reported $4 billion takeover bid and went to investors instead. The cloud and AI security startup now holds $400 million in fresh funding at a $3.8 billion valuation, up from $1.5 billion only nine months ago. Globes, citing The Information, reported the Datadog offer, but Upwind’s announcement never mentions it, so treat that detail as unconfirmed.
The round expanded as it went on. Reports in early September indicated $300 million, but an additional $100 million came in before the close. Bessemer Venture Partners led the Series C. Canapi Ventures came aboard as a new investor, while Cyberstarts, Greylock, Craft Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Picture Capital all returned. Including a $250 million Series B in January, investors have committed roughly $830 million. Upwind also reports that its revenue has quadrupled this year, although it did not provide dollar figures.
What is the product’s function? Upwind monitors live activity across cloud workloads, APIs and AI agents, then gives security, development and DevOps teams a common view of what is running and what data it can access. Engineers can trace a finding back to its source code. The pitch addresses a common frustration: fragmented tools produce alerts without context. Upwind responds with built-in AI agents that investigate an alert, confirm it and apply a fix, leaving people to handle the tougher decisions.
CEO Amiram Shachar argues that corporate AI agents now reshape cloud environments faster than human teams can follow. That claim explains why Upwind wants security that tracks interactions as they unfold.
Distribution helps too. AWS customers can launch Upwind from the AWS console through an integration with Security Hub and pay through their AWS bills. The platform also supports Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Named customers include Siemens, Roku and Carvana.
Shachar founded Upwind in 2022 with former colleagues from Spot, the cloud infrastructure optimization startup NetApp reportedly bought for $450 million in 2020. Back then, an exit of that size looked big. Now he has chosen a longer road, and Upwind will spend the new money on product work and a wider sales push.
