Cloud identity and security firm Apono announced today that it has closed a $34 million Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to over $54 million. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) with participation from Swisscom Ventures, Vertex Ventures, 33N Ventures, and existing investors.
Founded in 2022 by cybersecurity and DevOps veterans, Apono’s platform is designed to eliminate “standing privileges”—the persistent permissions long held by users or machines—and instead deliver access based on just-in-time (JIT) and just-enough-access (JEA) principles. As enterprises manage increasingly complex and dynamic cloud environments, the company argues that traditional, static identity and access management (IAM) models no longer suffice.
In the past year, Apono says it saw a fourfold increase in its customer base, signalling strong product-market fit. Its platform enables enterprises to grant and revoke access dynamically based on real-time context and business logic, allowing engineering and operations teams to move fast without compromising security. Apono also emphasises the upcoming era in which human and AI identities will coexist and require similar governance frameworks.
Apono’s list of customers reportedly includes major organisations such as Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Monday.com, all of which rely on the company’s solution to secure hybrid and multi-cloud environments while supporting compliance and improving incident response.
As part of the financing, Jacques Benkoski, General Partner at USVP, will join Apono’s board. A longtime investor in enterprise cybersecurity firms, he will partner with co-founders Rom Carmel (CEO) and Ofir Stein (CTO) to help scale the business in what Apono describes as the emerging “agentic identity security” field.
The new funding will enable the company to accelerate development of its AI-powered access intelligence and policy automation capabilities; expand its go-to-market operations in the U.S. and internationally; and significantly scale both its engineering and sales teams. The company will also participate in the upcoming AWS re:Invent conference from December 1-5, 2025, in Las Vegas, where it plans to showcase live demonstrations of its dynamic access platform.
Overall, the funding round underscores a growing investor appetite for identity security solutions that go beyond conventional IAM—especially in a world where AI-driven agents and automated processes increasingly demand controlled, agile access to cloud resources.
KEY QUOTES:
“The large-scale adoption of AI agents exponentially scales the problem of getting access right.”
“Achieving ZSP with a dynamic access management approach is the only sustainable way to secure Agentic operations at scale.”
Rom Carmel, Co-founder and CEO of Apono
“Apono is leading the next evolution of identity security – one that brings zero trust to identity access, following the zero trust of network access we’ve seen in recent years.”
“The company’s dynamic, context-aware approach is exactly what enterprises need to secure both human and machine identities in the AI-driven era.”
Jacques Benkoski, General Partner at USVP
