Cybersecurity Startup Guardz Raises $56M to Protect the Backbone of the Economy: SMBs

Guardz, the Israeli-born cybersecurity innovator now headquartered in Miami, announced on June 9, 2025, that it has closed a $56 million Series B funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $84 million in just over two years. Led by ClearSky and joined by Phoenix Financial, alongside returning backers like SentinelOne, Glilot, Hanaco, iAngels, GKFF, and Lumir, this infusion underscores the growing importance of tailored cyber defenses for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and their Managed Service Provider (MSP) partners.

From Fragmentation to Integration

In today’s threat landscape, SMBs are no longer fringe targets. Sophisticated “attack-as-a-service” offerings have lowered the barrier to entry for cybercriminals, making even modest organizations lucrative picks. Guardz CEO Dor Eisner, whose background spans elite cybersecurity units in Israel and global MSP management, argues that “MSPs are the first line of defense for these organizations—the engine of the global economy.” Yet, too many MSPs juggle a patchwork of security tools, struggling with fragmented alerts, manual triage, and ballooning costs.

Guardz tackles this head-on by delivering an AI-native, unified cybersecurity platform purpose-built for MSPs serving SMB clients. Instead of toggling between separate consoles for endpoint protection, email security, cloud monitoring, identity management, and data loss prevention, MSP teams see every signal—threat detection, alert prioritization, compliance reporting—through a single pane of glass. This consolidation not only streamlines operations but also drives down false positives and accelerates response times.

Real-World Impact

Consider a mid-sized U.S. MSP that was managing dozens of phishing alerts each week. Alerts arrived in silos across email filters, SIEM tools, and endpoint agents. After onboarding Guardz, the MSP slashed its average incident response time by 60%. Automated pre-triage flagged high-risk phishing attempts before they ever landed in employees’ inboxes, while deep integration with SentinelOne’s endpoint agent enabled one-click containment of compromised devices.

In Latin America’s healthcare sector, an SMB client experienced a surge of anomalous admin logins targeting its Google Workspace environment. Guardz’s proprietary AI models detected the pattern, auto-suspended suspicious sessions, and generated compliance reports that saved the MSP over 40 hours of manual work per month. What once was a reactive scramble became a predictable, streamlined process—critical in industries bound by strict patient-data regulations.

How the New Funding Will Fuel Growth

Guardz plans to deploy the $56 million round across three strategic pillars:

  1. U.S. Market Expansion: The company will ramp up its Miami-based sales team, forge MSP partnerships in key regions, and deepen go-to-market channels—especially within the mid-market segment, where cybersecurity budgets are growing but tool consolidation remains a challenge.
  2. Product Innovation: Further investment in AI research will enhance automated threat hunting, reduce noise, and expand native integrations with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, AWS, and Azure. Roadmap items include advanced anomaly detection, richer compliance dashboards, and built-in cyber-insurance workflows that help MSPs bundle protection with coverage.
  3. Integrated Controls: Guardz is building pre-approved security policies and playbooks that MSPs can deploy with minimal customization. This “policy as code” approach aims to reduce onboarding friction to under an hour, letting MSPs scale without sacrificing service quality.

ClearSky partner Alex Weiss, who led the round, notes, “Guardz’s AI-native approach, seamless integrations, and relentless MSP focus position them to lead this space.” His sentiment echoes broader market analysis: GlobalData reports Guardz now protects thousands of SMBs via hundreds of MSPs, highlighting its rapid traction in just 24 months. SecurityWeek praises the platform’s unified console for dramatically reducing manual labor, while Axios Pro warns that automated attacks on SMBs are rising—and calls Guardz’s AI-human detection model “essential.”

Expert Voices

Cybersecurity veteran and MSP consultant Maria Lopez emphasizes the human element behind Guardz’s tech: “Automation is powerful, but pairing AI with skilled threat hunters creates a safety net for edge cases. Guardz strikes that balance.” Similarly, compliance expert Dr. Aaron Meyer from the International Compliance Forum points out how Guardz’s reporting features help MSPs demonstrate regulatory alignment to insurers, driving down premium costs and opening new revenue streams.

What MSPs and SMBs Should Consider

As Guardz sets its sights on market leadership, MSPs should evaluate whether their current stack supports:

  • Unified Visibility: Can you see cloud, email, endpoint, and identity threats in one dashboard?
  • AI-Human Collaboration: Does your provider combine automated detection with live threat hunting?
  • Built-In Cyber-Insurance: Is insurance offered as an integrated service or an afterthought?

For SMBs, it’s worth asking your MSP if they:

  • Leverage AI-native platforms that scale with your growth.
  • Automate compliance reporting to reduce downtime and audit headaches.
  • Provide transparent threat metrics and service-level guarantees tied to insurance coverage.

Conclusion

Guardz’s $56 million Series B milestone signifies more than financial validation—it reflects a seismic shift toward consolidated, AI-driven cyber defense tailored for MSPs and SMBs. As the startup expands its U.S. footprint and doubles down on automation, it’s poised to redefine the baseline for accessible, enterprise-grade security. For investors, MSPs, and small business owners alike, Guardz’s journey offers a clear signal: in an era of commoditized attacks, streamlined protection and built-in risk transfer are no longer luxuries—they’re imperatives.

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