Venice Aims to Redraw the Identity Security Map with Unified Platform

A new challenger is making waves in the crowded identity and access management sector. Venice, a 35-person Israeli-American startup, has announced its Series A funding and a bold mission: to simplify how large companies secure both human and machine access across their entire digital estate.

The company, founded just over two years ago, secured $20 million in December. IVP led the round, with Index Ventures also participating. Venice's distinct approach is its commitment to securing both cloud-based and on-premises systems from a single platform, a technical hurdle many rivals avoid. This positions it to serve major corporations still operating legacy infrastructure alongside modern clouds.

Leading Venice is Rotem Lurie, 31, a former Microsoft product manager and Unit 8200 veteran. Her experience at Microsoft, later at startup Axis Security, and briefly at YL Ventures, shaped her vision. She observed that many security tools are built for acquisition, not to solve foundational problems. At Venice, she's playing a longer game.

"Most security teams use about ten different tools to manage access," Lurie explained. "We consolidate that into one system." The platform manages permissions for employees and the growing legion of AI agents and automated systems, a pressing need as non-human entities multiply on corporate networks.

Lurie claims this unified approach is already winning business. She says Venice is displacing established vendors at Fortune 500 and 1000 companies, slashing typical implementation timelines from up to two years to roughly ten days. While client names were shared off the record, they reportedly include a centuries-old manufacturing firm and a global music giant.

Cack Wilhelm, the IVP partner who led the investment, cited the urgency of the AI agent shift. "Privileged access tools were built for a static world," Wilhelm said. "If everyone has agents working for them, our identity concepts must adjust."

Venice operates with R&D in Israel and a go-to-market team in North America. Notably, nearly half of its employees are women, an unusual balance in cybersecurity. For Lurie, often the only woman in previous roles, this wasn't a strategy but a natural outcome. "You can never see yourself doing something if you didn't see someone like you doing it," she noted.

The startup now must prove its early traction and technical lead can withstand rivals with deeper pockets in a market projected to surpass $24 billion. Whether the sector consolidates or supports multiple winners remains the central question Venice hopes to answer decisively.

Source: TechCrunch