Oak steps out of stealth with $60M to fix AI identity mess
Backed by $60M in funding, Oak has stepped out of stealth to tackle identity access chaos as AI agents expand enterprise attack surfaces. Co-founded by serial cybersecurity entrepreneur Shai Morag, the Israeli startup offers an AI-native unified control plane that is generally available and already deployed by enterprise clients after raising the round late last year. Investors Accel, CRV, and Greylock Partners co-led one of the largest seed rounds in the region.
Key Takeaways
- Oak raised a $60 million seed round co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock Partners.
- The startup builds a unified identity control plane for humans, machines, and AI agents.
- Co-founders Shai Morag and Tal Marom interviewed 100 CISOs before shipping their product.
- Oak grew to 50 employees in stealth and is hiring heavily in the United States.
- Legacy IAM tools struggle with real-time, risk-based access as AI lowers the bar for attackers.
Why is identity management breaking under AI agents?
Physical badges once sufficed for workplace identity. Today, humans work alongside machines and AI agents in digital environments, and even cloud-era identity tools are proving inadequate.
Outdated credentials and poor identity access management (IAM)—the systems that control who and what can access company data—remain common security vulnerabilities. AI is expected to make exploitation easier for attackers, widening a gap Oak says it was built to fill.
What does Oak's platform actually do?
Oak describes itself as AI-native, positioning its product as a replacement for legacy IAM tools that lacked a consolidated alternative. Its unified control plane governs identity across an organization.
According to chief product officer Tal Marom, the team spent months speaking with 100 CISOs and IAM leaders. The result is an AI connector framework that maps access to actual app usage and removes permissions no longer needed in real time, rather than only during periodic reviews.
"Right now, the whole process is too manual, and it's operations-based, not risk-based—for instance, there's no trigger when an employee logs in from an unusual location," Morag told TechCrunch.
Who founded Oak and who backed the $60M round?
Morag—a former Israeli army major with more than two decades in cybersecurity—co-founded Oak with Marom after leaving Tenable, where he served as CPO following its $265 million acquisition of his startup Ermetic in 2023. Morag's track record also includes selling Secdo to Palo Alto Networks in 2018.
The company did not disclose client names but said its solution is generally available and deployed by enterprise clients. The seed round was co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock, with AlphaDrive Ventures, Hetz Ventures, and angel investors participating.
While in stealth, Morag and Marom built a team of 50 and are actively hiring, particularly in the U.S., where a majority of staff will soon be based. The surge in agentic AI has made identity a hot zone across Future Tech & AI Wonders, though Oak faces rivals and deep vendor lock-in in enterprise security.
Can Oak scale fast enough to win?
Accel partner Andrei Brasoveanu, who led Ermetic's Series A, said Morag had "it in him to build another company, but this time even bigger and even better." Both Brasoveanu and Morag expect stiff competition as AI acts as a catalyst for change in identity management.
Morag told TechCrunch his vision is to "be born as a giant." After briefly planning retirement, he co-founded Oak instead—and says this will be his last company: "I will go big or go home."