US investment giant Blackstone is backing a $27 million investment into one-year-old Israeli cybersecurity startup Huskeys, which is building a platform to protect businesses and organizations from malicious automated web traffic.
The funding round led by Blackstone values the young startup at about $100 million. The round was joined by Skinos Ventures, the investment fund of Shlomo Kramer, a prominent Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneur, who previously co-founded Check Point Software Technologies. Investment funds of cybersecurity companies Zscaler and Okta Ventures, alongside Merlin Ventures, also participated.
Other investors include Israeli actor and comedian Assi Cohen and mentalist Lior Suchard, who also serves as an adviser to the startup. To date, the startup has raised a total of $35 million.
Blackstone, which has over $1.3 trillion in assets under management, opened an office in Tel Aviv in 2021 to tap into the Jewish state’s growing or more established tech firms, including cybersecurity company Cyera, Adaptive Shield and Priority Software.
Huskeys was founded in 2025 by IDF intelligence Unit 8200 alumni Itai Gafni (CEO), who led AI projects during his military service, and Roy Weisfeld (CTO), who was a security researcher focused on web hacking in complex hybrid environments.
