Venice raises $20M to replace legacy identity management at Fortune 500 firms

Venice raises 20 million dollars for identity management

Venice emerged from stealth today with $20 million in Series A funding to replace legacy identity and access management (IAM) providers at Fortune 500 companies. IVP led the investment round with participation from Index Ventures, which previously led the startup’s seed round. The 35-person Israeli-American company aims to consolidate the fragmented tools large enterprises use to manage digital permissions.

The startup focuses on the growing problem of non-human identities, including AI agents, chatbots, and automated systems that require specific credentials to navigate corporate networks. Venice claims its platform already replaces industry stalwarts like CyberArk and Okta in several large-scale environments. The company targets the complex "hybrid" infrastructure of older corporations that mix modern cloud services with decades-old on-premises servers.

Founders Rotem Lurie and Or Vaknin started the company two years ago to address the "permissions problem" created by the proliferation of automated software. While many competitors focus strictly on cloud-native startups, Venice built its technology to handle the legacy systems that still power global manufacturing and financial giants. This technical choice requires more engineering resources but allows the company to move into high-value enterprise accounts.

Consolidating the enterprise security stack

Most enterprise security teams currently manage their permissions using roughly 10 different tools. These disparate systems often fail to communicate, creating security gaps that hackers exploit through credential theft. Venice integrates these functions into a single platform that handles privileged access for both human employees and non-human entities.

The platform automates the granting of "just-in-time" permissions, which limits access to the specific moment a user or agent needs it. This approach reduces the "attack surface" by ensuring that accounts do not hold permanent, high-level administrative rights. Cack Wilhelm, a partner at IVP, noted that most security breaches occur when attackers simply log in with stolen, valid credentials rather than hacking through a firewall.

Venice operates on a SaaS subscription model but emphasizes cost reduction through efficiency rather than low-ball pricing. The company eliminates the "professional services tax" typically associated with enterprise security deployments. Traditional setups often require expensive consultants and months of manual configuration, whereas Venice uses AI-powered automation to streamline the process.

• Implementation time: 1.5 weeks (compared to a typical 6 months to 2 years for legacy systems).
• Target market: Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies.
• Environment support: On-premises servers, SaaS applications, and cloud infrastructure.
• Total funding: Over $20 million following the December Series A round.

A background in elite intelligence and product scaling

CEO Rotem Lurie, 31, brings a background in Israeli military intelligence and major tech product management to the startup. She served four-and-a-half years as a lieutenant in Unit 8200, Israel’s elite signals intelligence corps. Following her military service, she joined Microsoft as a product manager for the team that developed Defender for Identity.

Lurie later served as the first product hire at Axis Security, an access management startup. Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired Axis Security for $500 million in 2022. Before launching Venice, Lurie spent time at YL Ventures, a firm focused on cybersecurity investments, where she observed the strategies of dozens of early-stage startups.

During her time in venture capital, Lurie noticed that many founders built companies specifically to be acquired quickly. She decided to take a different path by building a "deep and comprehensive" technology stack capable of supporting 170-year-old manufacturing giants. This long-term strategy convinced investors that Venice could compete with multi-billion-dollar incumbents rather than just seeking a quick exit.

The rising demand for non-human identity management

Industry analysts expect identity and access management spending to exceed $24 billion by 2025. This represents a 13% increase from previous years as companies struggle to manage the "identity sprawl" caused by AI adoption. If every employee begins using dozens of AI agents to automate tasks, the number of digital identities requiring monitoring will grow exponentially.

Current privileged access tools were built for a static world where a few IT professionals managed server rooms. Modern AI agents require a more dynamic approach that can adjust permissions on the fly. Venice markets itself as the solution for this shift, providing the visibility needed to track what every automated bot is doing within a corporate network.

The startup’s early customer list includes a global music conglomerate and a publicly traded manufacturing firm. These companies use Venice to replace legacy vendors that failed to provide adequate visibility across their hybrid environments. By shortening implementation times from years to weeks, Venice allows these firms to secure their systems without halting daily operations.

Building a diverse cybersecurity workforce

Venice maintains a team split between Israel, where the research and development team operates, and North America, which houses the sales and marketing functions. Nearly half of the company’s employees are women, a significant statistic in the male-dominated cybersecurity sector. Lurie attributes this to the company’s leadership and its ability to attract talent that sees itself reflected in the executive team.

The company’s investor roster includes several prominent figures from Wiz, the cloud security giant. Assaf Rappaport, co-founder and CEO of Wiz, and Raaz Herzberg, CMO at Wiz, both backed the company. Herzberg and Lurie previously worked together as interns at Microsoft, highlighting the tight-knit nature of the Israeli tech ecosystem.

Venice faces a crowded market with well-funded competitors like Persona, which raised $200 million, and Veza, which closed a $108 million round. However, Venice's leadership believes their focus on the "professional services" problem and hybrid support gives them a distinct advantage. The company plans to use its new capital to expand its engineering team and accelerate its push into the North American enterprise market.

• Venice (2024): $20 million Series A, focus on hybrid/legacy replacement.
• GitGuardian (2024): $50 million Series B, focus on secrets management.
• Veza (2023): $108 million Series D, focus on data security and permissions.
• Persona (2023): $200 million Series D, focus on identity verification.

The cybersecurity industry is currently undergoing a period of consolidation as buyers look to reduce the number of vendors they manage. Venice is betting that by offering a more comprehensive platform that handles the hardest parts of legacy IT, it can become one of the few dominant players left standing. The company’s ability to win Fortune 500 contracts early in its lifecycle suggests that large-scale buyers are ready to move away from traditional identity vendors.