Guardio raises $40M at $1.1B with Wiz's Assaf Rappaport

Revenue has grown more than 100% a year for four consecutive years. Rappaport joined as an investor. The round itself was led by existing backers ION Crossover Partners, Union Tech Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, Cerca Partners and Emerge Ventures. Total funding now stands at $167M, including an $80M Series B led by ION last November.

The round is small by design. CEO Amos Peled told Calcalist that existing investors wanted larger stakes and that the company did not need more cash to operate. The Tel Aviv company uses AI to protect consumers from scams, phishing, malicious sites and identity theft. Its core product is a detection engine that flags or blocks risky links, fake login pages and scam messages before users act.

For AI founders, two takeaways. The same AI that powers enterprise defense also helps scammers deceive people. That is building paid demand for consumer protection, a category long considered hard to monetize. Guardio also shows that strong revenue lets a company size a round to its operating plan and limit dilution, even at a unicorn valuation.