Daylight Security has pulled $33M – But Why?

The global cybersecurity sector witnessed a paradigm acceleration as Daylight Security, the Tel Aviv-based managed detection and response startup, secured $33 million in Series A funding just three months after its $7 million seed round—bringing total capital to $40 million in less than six months since emerging from stealth. Led by Craft Ventures with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Maple VC, and prominent cybersecurity founders including Assaf Rappaport (Wiz), founders from Torq, Cyera, Armis, and EON, this capital infusion coincides with the company already reducing false positives by up to 90% for dozens of enterprise customers.

Raising a crucial question: why is venture capital flowing into AI-native MDR when traditional managed security services captured $50 billion annually through human-centric operations, and established vendors spent decades building SOC infrastructures, yet Daylight Security’s autonomous AI agents perform continuous monitoring, context-aware investigation, and initial remediation faster than human analysts can complete single incident triage?

The $11.30 Billion Market Nobody Expected AI Agents Could Transform

The answer lies in understanding what’s happening beneath the surface of Daylight Security evolution. Despite the global managed detection and response market valued at $4.19 billion in 2025 projecting explosive growth to $11.30 billion by 2030—representing 21.95% compound annual growth—the sector faces a critical operational paradox. Traditional MDR services rely on human security analysts performing manual threat hunting, alert triage, and incident response across fragmented tools costing enterprises millions while delivering weeks-long deployment timelines, yet organizations demand 24/7 protection against AI-driven attacks that evolve faster than human-dependent processes can adapt as cyberattacks surge 50% year-over-year and average breach costs reach $4.45 million.

Daylight Security operates a technology platform unique in enterprise Daylight Security: Managed Agentic Security Services (MASS) featuring autonomous AI agents that perform continuous security monitoring, triage, context-aware investigation, and initial remediation while human analysts intervene only for higher-level decision-making.

Founded by Hagai Shapira and Eldad Rodich—veterans of Israel’s elite Unit 8200 intelligence unit—the company already serves dozens of enterprises across the United States and Europe including The Motley Fool, Cresta, and McKinsey Investment Office. The platform deploys in under one hour and integrates with any cloud or on-premise environment, delivering white-glove expert security services truly customized to organizational needs. As CEO Shapira emphasized: “Cyber threats are evolving faster than traditional SOC and MDR services can handle. We built Daylight to deliver a new level of managed protection services that respond with the speed and precision of AI, guided by human expertise.”

Why Traditional MDR’s Human Dependency Required Autonomous Alternatives

Daylight Security’s rapid funding trajectory provides context for why AI-native platforms outweigh incremental automation improvements. When established MDR providers emerged over a decade ago leveraging static machine learning rules to filter security alerts and augment human SOC services, that model succeeded reaching hundreds of millions in annual recurring revenue—yet required spending years honing integrations, algorithms, and internal operations driving toward “software-like” gross margins while making sacrifices that led to low NPS across much of the industry. The broader market validates urgency.

The funding structure of Daylight Security reflects institutional recognition that autonomous security superiority determines 21st-century cyber defense. Craft Ventures Principal Kevin Gabura articulated technology shift: “Security leaders are eager to integrate GenAI and agents within their operations. Daylight’s MDR is a turnkey, high-impact way to accomplish that, with dozens of organizations already on board.

Agent-native MDR is just the beginning of Hagai and Eldad’s ambitious vision for creating a new category of Managed Agentic Security Services, or MASS.” Unlike traditional MDR requiring weeks to deploy and leaving security teams stretched thin by alert fatigue and false positives, Daylight’s platform operates 24/7 detecting, analyzing, and containing threats in real time—powered by AI agents that learn from every investigation and act autonomously under analyst supervision.

The Agentic Architecture Behind Enterprise Adoption

The funding round of Daylight Security accelerates U.S. expansion, product development, and launch of new AI-driven modules for identity threat response and cloud workload protection. The timing coincides with cybersecurity reaching inflection points where AI-powered autonomous operations mature sufficiently to handle production workloads. Industry data confirms threat actors now weaponize artificial intelligence tooling to sidestep endpoint defenses and employ stealthy data theft across hybrid clouds, while operational-technology breaches climbed 73% in last reporting cycle exposing manufacturing and energy assets where IT-OT convergence widens attack surfaces.

The European Union’s NIS2 Directive effective October 2024 obliges essential-service operators implementing rigorous risk management that many satisfy only through third-party services, while U.S. critical-infrastructure reporting rules reinforce compliance tide repositioning MDR from optional safeguard to mandatory control.

Why This Matters For Global Cybersecurity Strategy

Daylight Security’s $33 million raise positions the platform within broader 2025 cybersecurity dynamics where autonomous AI agents demonstrate strategic advantages justifying investments despite established vendor dominance:

Threat Landscape Transformation: Cyberattacks surged nearly 50% year-over-year while average breach costs exceed $4.45 million, creating urgency enterprises cannot address through traditional approaches. Nation-state campaigns increasingly compromise software supply chains compelling organizations seeking MDR providers with end-to-end visibility. Security teams face rapidly growing cyberthreat landscape with bad actors increasingly using AI to become more adaptive and mimic legitimate user behavior, which in turn makes them harder to detect with traditional security methods. Studies confirm 63% of users trust AI-generated content when sources appear credible, while 85% of news organizations use or experiment with generative AI tools in 2025, demonstrating institutional acceptance enabling Daylight’s autonomous approach.

Market Maturation Accelerating: The MDR market exhibits unprecedented trajectories—$4.19 billion in 2025 reaching $11.30 billion by 2030 at 21.95% CAGR, with Asia Pacific projected expanding at 25.9% CAGR through 2030 on rapid digitization and escalating cyber-threat activity. Banking, financial services, and insurance captured 29.1% of MDR industry share in 2024, while healthcare and life sciences forecast 24.1% CAGR to 2030. North America represented 46.2% revenue share in 2024, driven by mature cybersecurity practices and growing reliance on managed detection and response solutions across enterprises. AI-driven autonomous SOC-as-code now automates investigation and response enabling faster containment while lowering provider entry barriers—yet Daylight’s Unit 8200 pedigree and enterprise traction create defensibility competitors cannot easily replicate.

Skills Gap Validation: Cybersecurity skills shortages in Daylight Security continue boosting MDR market growth as organizations outsource detection and response to expert providers. Small and medium enterprises benefit from cyber-insurance premium credits and turnkey 24/7 monitoring that overcomes internal skills shortages while remaining cost-predictable—SMEs now represent over 25% of demand for MDR services. Approximately 70% of enterprises seek outsourced cybersecurity services reflecting rising preference for MDR solutions over traditional measures. Daylight’s agentic approach addresses this by reducing alert fatigue, false positives, and time to resolution—key pain points for large enterprises where traditional SOC infrastructures struggle keeping pace with sophisticated and volumetric AI-driven attacks.

The Answer: Autonomous Operations Meet Human Expertise

So why $33 million for Daylight Security just three months after seed round? Because the platform combines elements investors value: proven founding team from Unit 8200 elite intelligence unit, enterprise validation serving McKinsey Investment Office and The Motley Fool demonstrating technology readiness, and strategic timing where MDR market grows 21.95% annually while autonomous AI capabilities mature. The managed security services market exceeding $50 billion annually with established vendors struggling adapting human-centric models demonstrates addressable scale, while 50% annual cyberattack growth and $4.45 million average breach costs create urgency demanding immediate solutions rather than incremental improvements.

The investment in Daylight Security validates that cybersecurity winners emerge through agent-native platforms enabling autonomous security operations rather than augmenting human analysts with workflow software. With cyberattacks using AI to evade traditional detection, 73% increases in operational-technology breaches, and compliance mandates like NIS2 forcing mandatory MDR adoption, enterprises face existential imperative modernizing defenses or accepting catastrophic risk. As 70% of organizations seek outsourced security and skills shortages persist, Daylight Security’s infrastructure reducing false positives 90% while deploying under one hour positions the company capturing first-mover advantages in winner-take-most dynamics.