When it come to securing data and identities, cybersecurity startups are making gallant moves in cloud environments in the last 6months of the year.

Protecting The Cloud

For many reasons, securing cloud environments such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud is a major trouble spot for organizations. Lack of visibility, a massively expanded attack surface and the highly dynamic nature of the cloud are just a few of the big issues facing security teams who are charged with protecting cloud-based resources. As just one indicator of their struggles, cybersecurity professionals who were surveyed at the RSA Conference in April reported that their biggest concern is cloud security, beating out worries about ransomware and remote work, according to a report from access management vendor Delinea.

Not surprisingly, many cybersecurity startups have chosen to focus on addressing these challenges, and a number of up-and-coming cloud security startups have been busy raising funding and deploying their products to more customers in 2023 so far. Notably, many cloud security startups — even those still at the early-stage level — have also been working closely with channel partners, in another sign of the massive market demand for innovation in the cloud security space.

Major focus areas for cloud security startups in 2023 include helping to secure data and identities in cloud environments, while other startups are offering capabilities for investigations and incident response in the cloud.

We’ve been tracking a number of cloud security startups and have chosen 10 that especially caught our attention during the first half of 2023. We’ve focused on startups founded since 2018 that you may not have heard about yet, but that we think are worth checking out (we’re intentionally omitting cloud security startups that have already achieved significant scale and wide recognition, such as Wiz and Orca Security).

Here are the 7 hottest cloud security startups in 2023 so far

1. Britive

In March, Britive announced raising $20.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Pelion Venture Partners. The startup is using the funds to expand the development and deployment of its platform that aims to enable improved identity security in cloud environments. Specifically, Britive is providing what’s known as “just-in-time” privileged access management — which automates the granting and revocation of user privileges — across multi-cloud environments. The startup’s platform also provides greater visibility into security issues in cloud-based systems such as misconfigurations, unusual activity and risky permissions.

2. Cado Security

In March, Cado Security landed $20 million in new funding led by investment firm Eurazeo. The startup, which offers what if calls the “first” platform for forensics and incident response in the cloud, said it will use the funding to expand its customer base and continue developing its product. In June, Cado followed up the funding announcement with the hire of Holly Shea Cappello, who formerly worked for cybersecurity vendors including Rapid7 and Carbon Black, as its new senior vice president of global sales. Cado Security offers a digital forensics platform that is cloud-native — which makes it uniquely designed for cloud environments, according to the startup — and is focused on automating investigation and response efforts.

3. Dazz

Dazz has aimed to stand out from others in the cloud security space by focusing on helping organizations to prioritize and remediate cloud vulnerabilities, in contrast to tools that are mainly capable of generating alerts. The startup’s platform further simplifies the process by providing developers with the fix to cloud security issues within their workspace. Founded by a group of former Microsoft executives — including Bahat, who was previously the general manager for Microsoft’s cloud security business — Dazz has collected $60 million in funding so far. Recent product moves have included the launch of a private preview for a capability that helps to automate remediation of cloud security issues, such as infrastructure-as-code flaws, by leveraging OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model to derive insights from sources of unstructured data. “Our unique position as a fully-integrated platform allows us to capitalize on the potential of LLMs in providing actionable remediation,” Dazz said in a blog post announcing the new capability in June.

Top 7 Hottest Cloud Security Startups In 2023

4. Dig Security

Dig Security, which focuses on data security in the cloud, has made a number of significant moves during the first half of the year including announcing an integration with cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike and landing an investment from Samsung Ventures. In April, Dig Security announced that its data security posture management (DSPM) platform has been integrated with CrowdStrike Falcon, enabling the delivery of enhanced visibility and control for cloud data in real time as well as improved discovery of security posture issues and sensitive data. The integration with CrowdStrike — which is also an investor in Dig Security — has produced what the startup says is the “first-in-the-market” DSPM offering that combines malware detection, data leak prevention and data detection and response in the cloud.

Meanwhile, in June, Dig Security announced that Samsung Ventures has made a “strategic investment” into the startup. The amount of the funding was not disclosed. Dig Security offers a partner program that includes a focus on working with channel partners around delivery of consulting advisory services, implementation services technical support and procurement.

5. Ermetic