Shay Shwartz has a deep understanding of the evolving landscape of email phishing. His journey began as a teenager, where he dabbled in hacking for profit. However, after an encounter with law enforcement at 16, he redirected his skills towards cybersecurity to thwart attacks rather than perpetrate them.
Over the past decade, Shwartz has held prominent positions in cybersecurity, contributing to critical projects for Israel's leading defense and intelligence units, including the renowned Iron Dome initiative. His career path eventually led him to Axis, a startup that was subsequently acquired by HPE.
With a vision to create his own venture, Shwartz launched his startup, Ocean, two years ago. This innovative email security platform, designed to address the challenges posed by AI-driven attacks, has recently come out of stealth mode, securing $28 million in funding. The investment round was spearheaded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with support from Picture Capital and Cerca Partners. Notable angel investors included Assaf Rappaport, co-founder and CEO of Wiz, alongside Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael, co-founders of Armis, which made headlines with its $7.75 billion acquisition by ServiceNow.
While established companies like Proofpoint and Mimecast, as well as newer entrants like Abnormal Security, focus on conventional phishing threats, Shwartz emphasizes that the rise of AI necessitates a novel defensive strategy. "AI has automated the entire process, significantly amplifying the scale of attacks," he explained to TechCrunch. "I can instruct a large language model to gather extensive public information about you and craft highly targeted phishing attempts."
Ocean leverages AI technology to meticulously analyze the context of every email, identifying fraudulent and impersonation attempts. The startup currently processes billions of emails monthly for clients such as Kayak, Kingston Technology, and Headspace.
To enhance its capabilities, Ocean has developed a specialized language model that swiftly assesses emails, discerns the sender's intent, and aligns it with the user's organizational context. "This is akin to having a security guard at every door," Shwartz remarked. "Our goal is to transform the inbox into a secure environment, ensuring high standards of hygiene."