How cofounders Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael built Armis, cyber exposure management and security giant

When you are in the business of cybersecurity, trust is everything. Armis’ cofounders, CEO Yevgeny Dibrov and CTO Nadir Izrael, began building that trust two decades ago — long before their company began taking shape. 

Both computer science graduates enrolled in the same excellence program at the Technion. “We collaborated on some interesting projects and found we had many complementary skills,” says Dibrov. “I knew that we would work together one day.”

Izrael subsequently spent five years as a software engineer at Google, working on Google Maps and Google Autocomplete. Dibrov became a firmware engineer at Ethernet cable maker Mellanox Technologies before joining the founding team at cloud security startup Adallom in 2012, a company created by the same team that later founded Wiz. 

When Adallom was acquired by Microsoft for $320M in July 2015, Dibrov gave himself one month off before starting to work on his next play. He quickly persuaded Izrael to leave his position at Google and ignited the process of starting a business together. 

The cofounders began brainstorming ideas for a cybersecurity startup. “We started working from the couch in Nadir’s apartment, cold calling CISOs and IT managers to ask them what tools they were missing,” Dibrov says. 

“Most people would come up with a cool technology, then figure out how to sell it. Instead, we looked for the biggest pain points and started there.” 

This customer-centric approach helped the founders realize that the IoT revolution of the mid-2010s and the subsequent explosion in connected devices was likely going to create a lot of risk. They founded Armis with one mission: to enable enterprises to use IoT and unmanaged devices safely and securely by protecting the entire attack surface. 

“We met eleven firms in one day”

The idea resonated with prospective customers and investors. In 2015, Armis raised seed funding to build out the technology. 

The cofounders brought on their first employees in early 2016 and launched their first operational and IoT security solution later that same year. 

Quickly winning customers across multiple verticals, including retail, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing, Armis raised a further $17M a year later in its Series A and $30M in its 2018 Series B.

“We were successful because we were doing something difficult, something that was not easy for others to replicate.” 

Growing their offering to also secure healthcare organizations and medical devices in early 2019, Armis continued to go from strength to strength. “We started out solving one problem, but we expanded quickly, solving more of our customers’ challenges,” says Izrael.

It was during the Series C fundraise that the Armis founders were first approached by Insight Partners. “It was 2019, and we had just closed an amazing year,” recalls Dibrov. “Revenues were up by 7.5x, and we were closing seven-figure deals, protecting major infrastructure and hospitals.”

Armis moved its headquarters from Tel Aviv to Palo Alto in 2017, and many of the U.S.’ biggest Silicon Valley venture capital firms were based around the corner from the new office. “We got a lot of interest,” says Dibrov. “We met 11 firms in one day and had eight offers on the table by the evening.”

Scale up your career: See all open roles at Armis.

The investor POV

“We knew that if we could show them the impact we could have on the business, they would want to work with us.”

“We had been tracking Armis for some time and were really impressed with the founding team,” says Managing Director Teddie Wardi. 

Dibrov and Izrael’s relentless focus on their customers impressed Wardi. For example, the founders’ travel schedule meant flying out on a Sunday, meeting customers in different states each day, and returning home on Saturday. 

“Yevgeny had an unmistakable drive. Every time we spoke, he was on the road in a different city (or country) for a customer, prospect, or partner,” explains Managing Director Thomas Krane.

Wardi and Krane reached out to schedule time with the founders but received a reply saying they were too busy to take a meeting.

“We knew that if we could show them the impact we could have on the business, they would want to work with us. We chased hard,” says Wardi.

The day before Dibrov and Izrael were set to sign a term sheet with Sequoia Capital, Wardi and Krane showed up at the Armis office anyway. “There was a knock at the door, and Teddie asked if we had time for coffee. Who can say no to a quick coffee?” says Dibrov.

“We were really impressed by their assertiveness,” adds Dibrov. “They explained all the things that Insight could do for us and, the following day, before we had even agreed to anything, the phone started ringing with potential customers. Through Insight, FedEx became a customer, a major win.”

The meeting with Wardi and Krane cemented the founders’ opinion of Insight: “They hustled and opened doors,” explains Dibrov. “We realized we had very similar values and knew we had to work with these guys.”

At the eleventh hour, the Armis founders brought Insight into the Series C deal despite pushback from the board, which didn’t want further dilution. “It was $5M, probably the smallest check they ever wrote,” says Izrael.  

“Once our initial investment closed, it felt like the starting gun of a race had just gone off,” says Krane. “We were constantly looking for ways to increase the company’s profile with our portfolio and network, teeing up intros to CISOs and prospects to help the company further accelerate revenue and adoption.”

Despite the minority stake, Insight brought the full power of its internal sales, marketing, and hiring machine into play. Through Insight’s Enterprise Center of Excellence  (formally Insight IGNITE) — a network for enterprise tech executives and software founders to connect, learn, and power growth — doors opened within new verticals.

“We first engaged Armis following our early-stage venture investment and helped source some of their first enterprise customers, including Nestlé and many others,” says Managing Director Emmet B. Keeffe III. “Armis has since grown into a very large business, and we have continued to support them every step of the way with introductions to global enterprises over the course of time.”

When it comes to winning over enterprise buyers, a few key traits consistently stand out about Armis. “It really comes down to the deep visibility Armis provides across IT, IoT, cloud, and OT environments — combined with the vast data it collects to deliver rich context,” says Senior Director William Blackwell. “This enables organizations to centrally and proactively manage vulnerabilities at scale and with speed across the entire enterprise.”

As the business scaled and expanded following the Series C, the cofounders’ relationship with Insight continued to grow. “Business is between people, not between companies,” says Izrael. From the start, the cofounders recognized shared values with the Insight team.

“Over the following nine months, we made such an impact that the Armis founders let us buy out most of the cap table,” reveals Wardi. 

In January 2020, Armis was sold to Insight Partners for $1.1B, Israel’s largest cyber exit at the time. Reflecting on the acquisition, Izrael says, “We saw a path to simplifying the company structure, with Insight joining us to make that happen, and we never looked back.”

Dibrov advises other founders to trust their gut instincts when choosing an investor. “Remember that this relationship is more binding than marriage. You can’t divorce your investors,” he explains. He and Wardi speak every few weeks: “I was lucky to find an investment partner who I actually want to spend time with,” he adds.

Becoming a unicorn

Despite challenges like the pandemic and economic uncertainty, the relationship thrived. “Yevgeny and Nadir did everything they could to adapt during COVID-19,” explains Wardi. “They pushed hard on remote work enablement, and we did everything we could to be supportive.” 

With the full power of Insight behind it, Armis continued to grow, securing 20 F100 clients in 2021 and 30 in 2022. 

Insight’s dedicated growth engine, Onsite, supported the cofounders in finding leaders in the industry to support their growth, including Conor Coughlan, who was brought in as CMO in 2021. 

“We highlighted key opportunities to refine target segments, sharpen messaging and positioning, action on hiring, and improve demand generation execution,” says Executive Vice President Barrie Markowitz. “Armis acted on these recommendations, and as a result, new logo ARR grew by over 200% between Q2 2021 and Q2 2022.”

Since the deal, Armis and Insight have collaborated on an ambitious M&A strategy, bringing complementary technologies into the fold. Insight’s Onsite helped the founders sift through opportunities and conduct due diligence on target companies. “We have looked at 100 companies so far,” reveals Izrael. 

“Insight understands our priorities. We don’t want to buy a company today and only see results in two years. We need results today.”

Armis has made three acquisitions to date: It bought cybersecurity player CTCI in February 2024, adding an early warning attack alert system for governments and enterprises to its stack; in April of that year it acquired Silk Security, strengthening its cyber threat remediation capabilities; and in March 2025 it acquired passive network monitoring platform OTORIO. 

Another promising cyber startup out of Israel, “OTORIO has products that we can start selling today, additive to the Armis platform,” says Dibrov. 

Izrael leads all acquisitions, owning the acquired company as a separate entity before it merges with Armis. 

“This gives us a bit of time to get to know each other and lets me give the company the same experience we got when we were acquired by Insight,” he says. “They retain autonomy and have the chance to maximize their potential, powered by a peerless go-to-market machine.”

On the path to IPO

In a sea of cyber ScaleUps, Armis stands out, says Wardi: “They consistently hit their numbers, and the opportunity is growing all the time,” he explains. 

The recent acquisitions, coupled with organic growth, have helped Armis to increase revenues by 60% YoY, and the company recently surpassed $200M in ARR. “We are on a clear path to $500M in ARR, and then $1B,” says Dibrov.

“We see a very bright future for the Armis team to eventually claim their spot in the cyber hall of fame, and perhaps set a new bar for future entrepreneurs to aspire toward,” says Krane.

For the Armis founders, protecting critical assets and being trusted by many of the biggest organizations in the world feels like an enormous privilege. “Every time we get an email from a customer saying, ‘You prevented a major attack,’ it is so energizing for us,” says Dibrov. 

Armis, which already protects nearly 40% of the Fortune 100, is now looking towards an IPO. “There’s no urgency, but we all believe Armis deserves to be a public company,” Dibrov says.

“It’s been a dream to reach this point in our journey. Ten years on, and we are more excited than ever about the technology we have built,” he adds.