Daniel Saks
Chief Executive Officer
The cloud security market is experiencing unprecedented growth, projected to reach $121.04 billion by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 12.87% from 2025 to 2034. As enterprises accelerate cloud migration, securing cloud infrastructure has become business-critical, creating explosive growth opportunities for innovative security providers. From agentless scanning platforms to AI-powered threat detection, these companies are redefining how organizations protect their digital assets. For go-to-market teams in the cybersecurity space, identifying and targeting companies with active cloud security needs is paramount. Agentic AI platforms like Landbase now enable security vendors to pinpoint prospects actively researching cloud security solutions, such as "Healthcare Orgs Researching Cloud Security" or "CIOs at enterprise IT services companies adopting new security platforms," transforming how cloud security companies find their next customers.
Wiz provides a comprehensive Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that delivers agentless scanning for full cloud visibility across AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle. The platform correlates cloud risks with source code and serves 40% of Fortune 100 companies.
The record-breaking $32 billion acquisition validates the strategic importance of cloud-native security. Wiz demonstrates a hypergrowth trajectory—founded in 2020, acquired for $32B by 2025—representing the premium that technology giants place on cloud security capabilities.
Chainguard provides secure software supply chain solutions focused on container security, offering minimal container base images with fewer vulnerabilities. The company creates a secure foundation for cloud-native applications, addressing the critical security challenge of software supply chain integrity.
Chainguard addresses one of the most critical security risks in modern software development: vulnerabilities introduced through open-source dependencies and container images. As supply-chain attacks increase and regulatory scrutiny intensifies, enterprises rely on Chainguard to provide trusted, continuously updated software foundations.
Cyera offers an agentless Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform that provides visibility across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments. The company has enhanced its data loss prevention capabilities through acquisitions and introduced AI Guardian for AI security posture management.
Cyera is critical to modern enterprise security because it gives organizations real-time visibility and control over sensitive data across cloud, SaaS, and on-prem environments, using AI-driven classification and risk analysis to reduce data exposure, support regulatory compliance, and enable secure adoption of generative AI—addressing one of the fastest-growing attack surfaces in cybersecurity.
Upwind Security provides runtime cloud security through its CNAPP platform, focusing on detecting abnormal behavior rather than just static misconfigurations. The platform reduces false positives while elevating real threats for more accurate security intelligence.
Upwind fills a critical security gap by shifting cloud protection from static posture checks to real-time, runtime-driven visibility and threat detection, enabling security teams to focus on actual, exploitable risks that manifest in live cloud workloads and applications rather than theoretical misconfigurations, and reducing alert noise while improving incident response accuracy.
Abnormal Security provides AI-powered email security that uses behavioral detection to identify and prevent sophisticated email attacks. The platform analyzes normal communication patterns to detect anomalies that indicate potential threats.
Abnormal Security addresses critical email security needs for organizations using cloud email platforms, showing explosive market adoption with 545% search growth over 5 years. The company achieved unicorn status with strong enterprise customer validation and cloud-native approach that aligns perfectly with modern email platforms.
Orca Security provides an agentless cloud security platform that uses its proprietary SideScanning technology to deliver comprehensive security without requiring software installation. The platform offers Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) capabilities with real-time threat monitoring.
Orca is important because it solves a core challenge in cloud security by giving enterprises complete, instant-on coverage of their entire cloud environment with reduced deployment complexity and fewer blind spots than agent-based tools—enabling security teams to rapidly detect and prioritize critical threats across multi-cloud workloads and accelerate secure cloud adoption.
Sweet Security provides cloud-native security protection solutions for cloud-native environments. The company focuses on protecting modern cloud infrastructure and has attracted significant investment from the cybersecurity community.
Sweet Security is important because it addresses a critical shift in cloud security from static, configuration-only tools to runtime-first detection and response, enabling organizations to detect and stop real threats in real time and defend both cloud and AI-native operations with improved accuracy, reduced noise, and stronger risk context—helping close major blind spots left by traditional posture-based solutions.
Netskope provides a Security Service Edge (SSE) platform that combines Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) capabilities with GenAI-powered SaaS security risk categorization. The company was the first SSE provider to integrate GenAI with CASB capabilities.
Netskope plays a pivotal role in modern enterprise security by converging networking and cloud security into a single, comprehensive SSE solution that gives organizations deep visibility, consistent data protection, and context-aware threat prevention across the cloud and web—helping reduce risk, accelerate secure cloud and AI adoption, and replace fragmented legacy tools with a unified, scalable platform trusted by thousands of enterprises worldwide.
Arctic Wolf provides a security operations platform that delivers managed detection and response (MDR) services through cloud-based SOC capabilities. The company is the largest pure-play MDR provider offering security operations as a service.
Arctic Wolf is a leader in managed detection and response (MDR), providing organizations with 24×7 threat monitoring, detection, and response through a cloud-native platform combined with expert security operations. Their approach helps businesses of all sizes defend against sophisticated cyber threats while reducing the complexity and cost of traditional security operations, making them a trusted partner for thousands of customers worldwide.
Illumio provides Zero Trust Segmentation solutions that stop lateral movement of ransomware through its CloudSecure platform for public and hybrid cloud environments. The company uses an agentless architecture for cloud environments.
Illumio’s Zero Trust Segmentation approach shifts security from perimeter defense alone to containment and isolation, limiting the impact of breaches when threats penetrate an environment. This capability is critical because traditional tools often fail to stop lateral movement once attackers are inside. By stopping attacks from spreading across applications, cloud workloads, containers, and data centers, Illumio strengthens cyber resilience for large enterprises and reduces breach impact, downtime, and risk exposure.
The fastest-growing cloud security companies share a common trait: they leverage AI not just in their products, but in their go-to-market strategies. As Louis Columbus noted in the Software Strategies Blog, "Institutional capital is consolidating around companies that make autonomous security practical, and agentic AI is at the core of that direction." This AI-first approach extends beyond product capabilities to how these companies identify and engage their ideal customers.
For cloud security vendors, identifying prospects with active security needs is critical. Traditional approaches rely on manual list building or basic firmographic filtering, but the most successful companies now use AI-powered audience discovery platforms like Landbase to identify high-intent buyers based on real-time signals. For example, instead of targeting all healthcare organizations, vendors can use natural-language prompts like "Healthcare Orgs Researching Cloud Security" to find companies actively evaluating solutions.
Landbase's GTM-2 Omni AI model analyzes 1,500+ unique signals across firmographic, technographic, intent, hiring, and funding data to qualify prospects with precision. This enables cloud security vendors to:
This AI-powered approach to go-to-market is becoming as critical as the AI capabilities embedded in the security products themselves. As the cloud security market continues its rapid expansion, companies that master both product innovation and AI-driven audience discovery will maintain their competitive advantage.
A 'fastest-growing' cloud security company is defined by rapid revenue growth (like Wiz reaching $100M ARR in 18 months), substantial recent funding rounds (such as Cyera's $540M Series E), and premium valuations (Chainguard's $4B valuation in just 3 years). These companies typically demonstrate innovation in critical areas like agentless architecture, AI-powered threat detection, or specialized security categories like DSPM or Zero Trust Segmentation. Strong market recognition, such as Abnormal Security's #19 ranking on the Forbes Cloud 100, also distinguishes fastest-growing companies from competitors.
Cloud security companies ensure compliance through comprehensive security architectures that address data protection, access controls, and audit requirements. They implement encryption for data at rest and in transit, strict identity and access management policies, regular security assessments, and maintain detailed audit logs. Many companies achieve SOC 2 Type II certification and implement GDPR-compliant data handling practices, including data minimization, purpose limitation, and user rights management. These compliance capabilities are often built directly into their platforms as features that customers can leverage for their own compliance requirements.
AI plays a central role in both cloud security products and market growth by enabling autonomous threat detection, behavioral anomaly identification, and predictive security posture management. As industry analysis notes, "institutional capital is consolidating around companies that make autonomous security practical, and agentic AI is at the core of that direction." In go-to-market, AI-powered platforms help security vendors identify high-intent prospects using natural-language targeting based on 1,500+ unique signals. This dual AI application—both in product and GTM—drives the premium valuations and rapid growth seen in the sector.
Businesses can identify the right cloud security startup by first mapping their specific security requirements to solution categories (CNAPP, DSPM, CASB, Zero Trust, etc.), then evaluating vendors based on their architectural approach (agentless vs. agent-based) and cloud platform coverage (AWS, Azure, GCP). For specialized needs like software supply chain security, companies like Chainguard offer focused solutions, while comprehensive platforms like Wiz provide broader coverage. AI-powered discovery platforms can help businesses find vendors that match their specific requirements by analyzing the security company's customer profiles, funding stage, and market focus.
Emerging cloud security startups typically progress through Seed rounds ($2M-$10M) for initial product development, Series A ($10M-$50M) for market validation and early customer acquisition, and Series B ($30M-$100M) for scaling operations and expanding market reach. Series C+ rounds ($100M+) support market leadership and international expansion, with recent examples including Upwind's $100M Series A and Sweet Security's $75M Series B. The sector's premium 21.7x revenue multiples enable startups to raise increasingly large rounds as they demonstrate market traction and customer acquisition.
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