Piiano raises $9M Seed Round to Deliver Privacy by Design

Today we’re excited to share the news of our newest portfolio company, Piiano, which has emerged from stealth with a $9M seed round, led by YL Ventures with participation from Jibe Ventures and the visionaries behind some of today's most exciting cybersecurity companies, including Snyk, Armis, Wiz and Aqua!

Piiano’s vision to change the way that enterprises think about privacy begins with two modules: (1) a vault to centralize and protect sensitive information in a dedicated database, and (2) a code scanner to locate sensitive information across the enterprise.?Together, these offerings are the foundation of the Piiano platform, which aims to fundamentally shift the industry's approach to sensitive data.

I am also beyond thrilled to be backing Gil Dabah and Ariel Shiftan, experienced entrepreneurs who together previously founded NorthBit, which in 2016 was acquired by Magic Leap, where the two went on to lead product security.?We’re honored that Gil and Ariel have chosen YL Ventures as partners for their next foray into the startup world.

The Team

As we always say about seed stage investing, finding the best teams is of paramount importance.?It’s an area where we can afford no compromise.?In this case, I had known that Gil was special long before meeting him, as his name frequently popped up when speaking with others in the ecosystem.?Before we actually met, I was primed with the knowledge that Gil had earned the respect of many ultra-talented security practitioners across the Israeli landscape – not a group predisposed to dolling out high praise!?As such, when I first met Gil at Black Hat in 2018, I wasn’t surprised at the passion he brought to our conversations on security.?In fact, at a small dinner we hosted near the Mandalay Bay Casino, Gil quickly found himself at the center of the discussion, passionately debating cybersecurity philosophies with some of our most opinionated and passionate advisors.?He fit right in!

I already understood that Gil had the credibility and talent to do whatever he wanted in the cybersecurity world, but I also knew it would be some time before he was going to zero in on any one opportunity.?When I met him, he needed a break – and it was also apparent that whatever he eventually jumped into would have to be massive.?From that first meeting in Las Vegas, it’s been a pleasure to get to know Gil, both professionally and personally. ?Over the years, I’ve found myself chatting with him about various security startups, where Gil would often bring a unique perspective, always aware and critical of the intricacies of both cybersecurity technology and of building a real business.?I’ve known for some time that if Gil’s mission-driven passion for advancing the world of cybersecurity technology met a worthy problem, there was potential for something very special.

Given that, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Gil, along with his longtime Partner, Ariel – whom I met for the first time in April of this year – proposed a fundamental shift in the way that the world should think about privacy.?Gil and Ariel were not thinking of ways to address the symptoms of today's privacy challenges, rather they wanted to target the problem at its root.

And so, here we are. A world class team of Cofounders who describe each other as ‘entrepreneurial soulmates’, reuniting to present the world with a paradigm shift in how to think about data privacy.

Taking the Leap

Gil and Ariel came to our offices in Tel Aviv a few months ago with revolution on their mind – they were going to fix data protection and privacy, not with a bandage, but with a fundamentally evolved approach to the problem.?We had the pleasure of watching Gil and Ariel riff on privacy and data security with many of our advisors, where their passion and analysis blew us away.?With strong conviction, Gil and Ariel would charge hard at a specific angle, and then with ruthless objectivity they would dissect the results and iterate on their approach.?As their thinking on stakeholders and go-to-market approaches evolved, the two gained an aura of what seemed like unstoppable momentum – they were going to land on something big sooner rather than later.

As the vision continued to emerge, becoming clearer by the day, Gil & Ariel were very direct and honest with us.?There were still big question marks (at this stage there always are), but the problem was defined – and the two were ready to tackle it.?Having seen this team working in tandem, we were more than prepared to take the leap alongside them, and so we signed a term sheet for the largest seed round in this history of YL Ventures. Now it is full steam ahead, and we are as excited as ever.

Leveraging Technology to Drive Change

Gil and Ariel are determined to fundamentally change enterprise privacy culture, while serving the intersecting (and diverse) interests of developers, privacy professionals and security teams.?To do so, they will help customers achieve comprehensive visibility, management and control of PII with ready-to-deploy privacy engineering. ?With the sprawl of sensitive data continuing to proliferate across disparate parts of today’s enterprises, existing approaches often seem to play catch-up, chasing a problem that continues to grow beyond their grasp.?The Piiano platform aims to make an impact by providing developer-first infrastructure to help enterprises achieve – by design – seamless PII centralization and pseudonymization within their cloud environments.?

The first two modules of this platform, as dictated by extensive customer discovery, will provide users with immediate value from day one. Piiano’s PII Vault takes a privacy-forward approach to PII cleanup by centralizing and securing sensitive customer information and keeping data stores pseudonymized. ?In addition to the vault, Piiano’s code scanner offers unparalleled insight and visibility into fragmented PII to fully enmesh sensitive data handling under a single privacy and data protection strategy. ?These features are the first steps in empowering organizations to manage data, track PII access and enforce advanced privacy policies in a more robust way.

Building Piiano

Gil and Ariel have wasted no time in processing a massive number of data points from the market, churning out a product roadmap that has awed and inspired us.?Their offering, driven by market opportunity and fueled by a passion to bring true value to users, is already getting design partners excited. This team is bringing a different perspective to data protection, one that acknowledges the reality that to achieve such an ambitious goal, a whole new way of thinking about privacy is required. The Piiano team is not aiming for incremental change, rather they are making a statement that there is something broken at the core of how the industry thinks about privacy - and they want to fix it.

Rather than taking a reactive approach, Piiano is redefining what it means to architect privacy in a way that serves organizations more robustly. ?Where privacy strives for compliance, engineering looks to build, and security aims to reduce risk, Piiano acknowledges these incentives and priorities, while encouraging the cultural change and privacy-forward approach necessary to help organizations achieve their goals.

With a lofty vision and many variables in a huge (and complex) market, Gil and Ariel have the conviction and value-driven solution that will deliver great ROI for customers in the short term, while impacting the privacy industry as a whole over the long run. ?With already impressive experience – both as individuals and as a team – these two have what it takes to navigate the many challenges ahead, and we at YL Ventures feel lucky to be along for the ride.

Thank you, Gil and Ariel, for choosing us – we are here at your side!