Upwind, a cloud security startup founded in 2022, announced a $400 million Series C on Oct. 28, according to SecurityWeek. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round. Upwind announced a $250 million Series B about nine months earlier, and its total funding is now over $800 million. SecurityWeek reports the new round values the company at $3.8 billion.
The round followed weeks of conflicting reports. Globes reported on Sept. 2 that Upwind was set to raise $300 million at a $3.8 billion valuation. Then, on Oct. 22, The Information reported that observability company Datadog had offered nearly $4 billion to buy Upwind outright. CTech by Calcalist reported that same day that the reported offer was not made. The round that was announced is $100 million larger than the one Globes and CTech had described, and Upwind raised money instead of selling.
The Round
SecurityWeek says Bessemer led the round, with participation from Canapi Ventures and existing investors including TCV, Greylock Partners and Salesforce Ventures. Globes had earlier described Bessemer as a veteran investor in the company.
The valuation has risen quickly. SecurityWeek and CTech both say the January Series B valued Upwind at $1.5 billion. Globes puts that figure at $1.6 billion. Either way, the reported valuation has more than doubled in about nine months.
Shachar has sold a company before. SecurityWeek notes that Amiram Shachar previously founded Spot.io, which NetApp bought for $450 million. SecurityWeek says Upwind's customers include Siemens, Roku and Nubank, and CTech also names Roku and Nubank.
What Upwind Sells
SecurityWeek describes Upwind as a "runtime-native" cloud security platform that gives organizations more visibility into networks, APIs and data flows. In plain terms, many cloud security tools mostly inspect configurations, permissions and code before anything is deployed. A runtime-focused tool also watches workloads while they run, so it can flag what a process is actually doing, not only what it was set up to do. The two approaches overlap, and a vendor's description of itself is not a substitute for testing it.
CTech adds that Upwind has been expanding into AI security. It reports that in September 2026 the company acquired Aegis in a stock deal reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars and set up Upwind AI Labs to work on securing AI systems and agents.
The Datadog Report
On Oct. 22, The Information reported that Datadog had approached Upwind about an acquisition at a price close to $4 billion, according to CTech's account of that report. CTech also says The Information reported that Upwind had received other approaches but had not accepted them. Datadog sells monitoring and observability software and has been adding security products. CTech reported that the offer had not been made, citing what it had learned. At the time, CTech said Upwind was finalizing a $300 million round at $3.8 billion. SecurityWeek mentioned both accounts in its funding story.
None of the sources includes a public statement from Datadog. With what's available, the reported offer remains unconfirmed and was directly disputed. What is confirmed is that Upwind announced a funding round, and that it was larger than the $300 million that was reported earlier.
The Wiz Effect
Globes ties Upwind's growth to the gap in the cloud security market after Google bought Wiz, the best-known Israeli cloud security company, for $32 billion. Globes says Upwind signed enhanced agreements with Amazon and Microsoft that helped distribute its product to customers looking for an alternative to Wiz under Google. Upwind appears to be one of the beneficiaries.
Globes, citing sources, gave financial estimates that Upwind has not confirmed:
- Revenue under $20 million in 2025.
- An estimated $50 million to $60 million in revenue so far this year.
- Possibly $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by year-end.
CTech separately says The Information reported ARR above $50 million, up from about $20 million at the end of 2025. If the Globes numbers hold, Upwind's revenue would grow several-fold in a year. At $100 million ARR, a $3.8 billion valuation would be about 38 times ARR. These are reported estimates, not company disclosures, and Globes' report came before the final $400 million figure was announced.
What It Means for Defenders
This is a funding story, not a vulnerability. There is nothing to patch and no fixed version to install. It still matters to security teams that run Upwind, are evaluating it, or are working out where their cloud security stack is heading.
- Current Upwind customers: Another $400 million makes it likely the company keeps building for a while. The past week also showed acquisition interest, whether or not the Datadog offer was real. When a security vendor is bought, its pricing, integrations and roadmap often change. Review your contracts for change-of-control terms, data-export rights and renewal pricing protections now, while you have leverage.
- Teams comparing cloud security platforms: Buyers who reconsidered their options after Google bought Wiz now have another well-funded vendor to look at. Judge any vendor, Upwind included, on what it detects in your environment today: how much of your workloads, identities and code repositories it covers, and how much alert noise it produces. Funding announcements and roadmap slides aren't evidence of either.
- AI agent claims: Upwind is putting effort into securing AI systems and agents. These are real problems. Many organizations now have AI agents with access to code, cloud APIs and internal data, often without a full inventory of what those agents can do. Whichever vendor you use, ask for a working demonstration of agent inventory and permission mapping before treating the feature as available.
- Federal contractors and CMMC shops: The sources say nothing about Upwind's FedRAMP status or government authorizations. Don't assume a newly funded vendor fits a regulated environment. Check its authorization status and where your data is stored before you buy.
- Consolidation planning: Observability and security vendors keep moving closer together. If your monitoring vendor and your security vendor could end up as the same company, think about how much single-vendor dependence you are comfortable with. Keep your detection logic and logs portable so you can switch providers if you need to.
