A new cloud security startup called Native came out of stealth mode on Tuesday, announcing $42 million in funding to build what it describes as a “control plane” for cloud security.
The funding includes a $31 million Series A round led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, YL Ventures, and Merlin Ventures. Phil Venables, former chief information security officer at Google Cloud and venture partner with Ballistic, has joined the company’s board.
Native aims to help companies better secure complex, multi-cloud environments as cyber threats accelerate in the age of AI.
The company, which has Fortune 100 enterprises as customers, lets teams define security policies once and automatically enforce them across platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Instead of relying on tools that detect vulnerabilities after the fact, the startup focuses on preventing issues upfront by embedding security policies directly into cloud infrastructure.
Native’s platform uses the built-in security features from each cloud provider and translates high-level policy into the specific configurations needed to enforce it across environments. The software also includes tools to simulate changes and roll them out gradually, helping reduce the risk of disrupting production systems.
Native CEO Amit Megiddo said that while cloud providers offer security tools, many companies struggle to use them effectively.
“We built Native so that security teams can define security policy intent and have it enforced everywhere, staying aligned as environments change,” Megiddo said in a press release. “When security is native to the infrastructure, it enables the business to move faster within a secure framework.”
The company’s customers include “one of the largest streaming services in the world” and “one of the world’s top chip manufacturers,” according to a blog post from Ballistic.
Native was co-founded in 2024 by three longtime software engineers:
- Megiddo, who is based in Seattle, led Amazon GuardDuty within AWS
- CTO Eyal Faingold, based in Tel Aviv, led cloud security at Check Point Software Technologies
- CPO Gal Ordo, based in Tel Aviv, worked on AWS Security Hub during a stint in Seattle
Native has 41 employees across the U.S. and Israel, with a majority based in the Tel Aviv area, according to LinkedIn. It plans to more than double its headcount by the end of the year.
“Cloud security is entering a new era where the unit of work is not ‘finding’ problems, it’s safely enforcing the right architecture at speed,” Venables said in a statement. “What will matter most is whether a platform can translate intent into real, provider-native enforcement across clouds and keep that enforcement aligned as environments evolve.”
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