Every day, employees at large enterprises share sensitive files, email customer data, and upload documents to cloud services—activities that are essential to business, but also create constant risk. For more than two decades, security teams have relied on data loss prevention (DLP) software to control that risk. The result has been a paradox: as DLP tools proliferate, security teams spend more time managing alerts than preventing actual data leaks. Traditional DLP platforms depend on thousands of manually authored rules to define what constitutes risky behavior. Those policies require constant tuning as they generate floods of false positives, flagging routine business activity as potential threats. Over time, teams end up maintaining the system rather than trusting it.
ORION Security takes a fundamentally different approach. By eliminating policies entirely, the company uses five proprietary AI agents to analyze every data movement in real time, capturing full business context – content sensitivity, data lineage, user behavior, and intent – to block only genuinely risky transfers. The result is a 96% reduction in false positives and rapid adoption by Fortune 500 customers. In a $5B DLP market where organizations often spend more maintaining security tools than the tools themselves cost, ORION delivers what legacy platforms have failed to provide – accurate, context-aware protection that distinguishes legitimate workflows from real data theft.
AlleyWatch sat down with ORION Security CEO and Founder Nitay Milner to learn more about the business, its future plans, recent funding round that brings total funding to $38M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised a $32M Series A funding led by Norwest, with participation from IBM and existing investors PICO Venture Partners, Lama Partners, Underscore VC, and Others.
Tell us about the product or service that ORION Security offers.
ORION is an AI-Native Data Loss Prevention (DLP) startup. We’re helping organizations secure themselves against data leaks. Our platform protects against both malicious activity and everyday human mistakes by identifying risks early and preventing exposure before it happens.
What inspired the start of ORION Security?
ORION was inspired by what my Cofounder and CTO, Jonathan Kreiner, experienced firsthand while serving as Head of Application Security at a NASDAQ-traded company. His organization purchased a legacy DLP tool and wasted the entire two-year contract just trying to get it to work. It flooded the team with false positives and countless alerts that weren’t real threats, just noise. Maintaining the tool ended up costing more than the tool itself, and it never actually prevented a data leak.
That failure made it clear to us that the problem wasn’t configuration but the technology model itself. That’s when we decided to build ORION and rethink data loss prevention from the ground up, addressing the core issues at the root of the industry.
How is ORION Security different?
While other vendors base their DLP strategy on policies or try to improve policies with AI, ORION uses AI to replace policies. Using a set of 5 proprietary agents, ORION detects data leaks by analyzing every data movement within the organization, understanding the full business context behind it, and preventing only risky data flows, without requiring the organization to define a single security policy in its DLP tool.
What market does ORION Security target and how big is it?
We target the DLP market, currently estimated at around $5B and expected to reach over $20B by 2030.
What’s your business model?
Our business model is B2B SaaS. We sell our software directly to security teams within enterprise organizations, and we’ve already attracted large, global enterprises as customers across highly regulated industries.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We’re building the company with capital efficiency in mind from day one. With the funding we’ve just raised, we’re confident we have the runway to continue executing and growing. At the same time, security spending tends to be more resilient than most categories during downturns, and our focus on delivering clear, measurable ROI positions us well in that environment.
What was the funding process like?
After our recent traction and strong growth, we were approached by several top-tier VC firms. We took the time to speak with several of them and were thoughtful in finding the right long-term partner. Ultimately, we decided to move forward with Norwest, and we’re excited to have such a prominent fund joining us on our journey.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
We were fortunate that the process went relatively smoothly. The main challenge was being thoughtful about who we wanted as a long-term partner and making sure there was strong alignment on vision, pace, and how we want to build the company.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The speed of our execution stood out. In a very short period, we hit milestones that typically take much longer, including signing Fortune 500 customers within our first five months of go-to-market and quickly reaching seven-figure ARR. That level of traction made it clear to investors that there’s a strong product-market fit and something genuinely special happening in the business.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’re planning to continue our amazing customer traction, signing more large enterprises and significantly expanding the product’s capabilities.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Focus relentlessly on the fundamentals. Always stay close to your customers, prioritize revenue and clear ROI, and be disciplined about where you spend time and capital. Growth doesn’t have to come from raising money – it can come from building something people truly need and are willing to pay for, especially in tougher market conditions.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
In the near term, we’re going to expand our team significantly and hire more people who truly want to revolutionize the DLP market.
What’s your favorite winter destination in and around the city?
Central Park after a fresh snowfall. It’s simple and quiet, and it feels like a different city for a moment.
