Ocean raises $20 million Series A to tackle AI-driven email attacks
Ocean raises $20 million Series A to tackle AI-driven email attacks
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sj59xf5jml
Publish Date: 2026-05-19 12:35:00
Source Domain: www.calcalistech.com
Ocean, an AI-based email security platform, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round.
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Picture Capital, the fund of Island founders Mike Fey and Dan Amiga, as well as Transmit founders Rakesh Loonkar and Mickey Boodaei, and Cerca Partners. Angel investors include Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport, Armis founders Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael, and Axis Security CEO Dor Knafo, who is also a partner at Cyberstarts, along with other leading investors. The company previously raised an $8 million Seed round in 2024, also led by Picture Capital. Ocean Security currently employs about 35 people.
The company was founded in 2024 by Shay Shwartz and Oran Moyal, who both served in elite units in the IDF Intelligence Corps and were later tasked with establishing a joint unit for the IDF and Shin Bet, where they led major projects over four years and received personal awards, including the Israel Security Award.
After their military service, Shwartz joined Axis Security, which was later acquired by HPE, while Moyal joined VisibleRisk, which was acquired by BitSight, and later Microsoft, where he founded a group focused on identifying security weaknesses in Azure cloud products. The idea for Ocean Security emerged from their defense-sector experience, where they identified a lack of effective solutions for protecting against email-based phishing attacks.
In an interview with Calcalist, Moyal said that during his service in the Shin Bet, he observed how attackers use social engineering and phishing to manipulate users. “Some attackers are motivated by money, others by access to information or control over systems,” he said. “The goal varies, but the method is consistent: building a detailed profile of the target. What once took weeks can now be done in minutes using AI. The entire process of data collection and attack generation has become automated, and attacks that were once rare are now the norm.”
