insights

‍The identity control plane is finally forming

Most cyber stories start with a scary breach headline.

This one starts with something more ordinary.

An employee logs in from a new device. A contractor connects remotely. A service account runs an automated job at 2am. A system silently authenticates to another system, as it has for years.

Nothing looks dramatic. Until it is.

In modern breaches, attackers rarely “break in” through some exotic vulnerability. They log in. They steal or abuse credentials, then move through the environment using the same pathways as legitimate users and machines.

That is why identity has become the real perimeter.

Identity security is fragmented, so security is fragmented

If you are not deep in cybersecurity, here is the simple version:

Most large organisations do not run on one identity system.

They run a mix of cloud identity, on-prem directory services, older applications, servers, databases, remote access tools, and service accounts that do not behave like human users.

As a result, security teams end up with policies that work well for modern cloud applications but break down in the parts of the enterprise that still run on older protocols and systems. Those “legacy” areas are not small. They are where many of the most valuable assets still live.

So while the industry has excellent tools for pieces of identity, there is still no unified control layer that can consistently enforce access security across the full hybrid environment.

That is the category gap.

Protect authentication everywhere, not just the easiest places

Silverfort is built around a straightforward idea: if you can see and enforce policy at the authentication layer, you can apply modern accesssecurity even where traditional tools have blind spots.

This matters because many systems cannot be easily modernised. You cannot just swap out how a hospital, a bank, or a manufacturer authenticates across thousands of servers, apps, and devices without breaking operations.

Silverfort’s approach is designed to work across that reality, spanning both cloud and legacy environments, and enabling consistent controls without requiring every system to be rebuilt.

We believe Silverfort can lead a major consolidation wave

We invest behind category leadership, not point features.

Here is why we think Silverfort has a real shot at defining this category.

1. ‍The need is structural, not a trend. Enterprises are hybrid by necessity. Legacy systems and older access methods are not going away quickly, yet attackers increasingly exploit those paths. Identity security is shifting from “nice to have” to essential.‍
2. The product aligns with how enterprises actually buy. Large organizations do not want five separate tools enforcing five separate identity rules. They want one policy layer that works across their environment and complements what they already use.‍
3. Neutrality is an advantage. In identity, the biggest platforms compete with each other. Customers feel that tension. A neutral layer that can work across ecosystems is positioned to win trust, especially in complex enterprises.‍
4. The opportunity expands beyond humans. The fastest-growing identity problem is not employees. It is non-human identities: service accounts, workloads, integrations, automation, and increasingly AI agents acting on behalf of people and systems. Securing “who can do what” is becoming “what can software do, when, and under what conditions.”

 We believe identity security will broaden into a single platform category that spans human and non-human access, hybrid environments, and AI-driven activity. Silverfort is early to that platform shape.

Team and culture: technical depth plus execution pace

In cybersecurity, deep technology is necessary but not sufficient. The winners pair technical advantage with operational discipline: shipping reliably, integrating into messy enterprise environments, and building trustwith security teams.

Silverfort’s team has that combination. Founder-led, engineering-driven, and built for the long game. That is a major reason we were comfortable underwriting category leadership, not just a product cycle.

What we are betting on

We are betting that identity becomes the next major consolidation layer in cybersecurity, because it is where access decisions are made and where attackers increasingly operate.

We are betting that security teams will demand consistent enforcement across the full hybrid environment, not only what is easiest to secure.

And we are betting that as AI agents and non-human identities multiply, the world will need a unified way to control access and behaviour across bothpeople and machines.

Silverfort is built for that future. That is why we invested.