Twine is a company that builds AI Digital Employees who execute tasks from A to Z to help cyber teams close the talent gap. The company’s first digital employee, Alex, learns, understands, and takes away the burden of identity and access management tasks, proactively completing your organization’s cyber objectives. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Twine co-founder and CEO Benny Porat to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Benny Porat’s Background
Benny Porat, Co-Founder and CEO, Twine. Photographer: Noi Einav
What is Benny Porat’s background? Porat said:
“I am the Co-Founder and CEO of Twine Security. Before founding Twine, I was one of the founders and CTO at Claroty, a multi-billion-dollar-valued leader in cyber-physical systems. Before that, I led a strategic research team in the elite 8200 Cyber Unit of the IDF, and graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Porat shared:
“For years, as the founder of Claroty, I saw our customers’ challenges in executing their cybersecurity programs. Many of them used many tools and defined specific workflows, but eventually, they rarely had enough resources or time to execute their plans fully. Their companies’ cybersecurity objectives got lost amid so many activities, programs, and initiatives. From that need for end-to-end cyber execution, Twine was created.”
“Twine equips cybersecurity teams with AI Digital Employees who work alongside them to execute tasks from A to Z and help them close talent and resource gaps.”
“My fellow co-founders and I recognized Identity Access Management (IAM) as the first cyber area to tackle. After speaking to more than 100 CISOs and Identity leaders, we realized that IAM is a key pain point for IT and cyber departments, which face the threat of malicious actors gaining access to their systems.”
“Twine’s Alex, the first of many AI Digital Employees, is trained to understand and take care of Identity and Access Management tasks from start to finish, and help organizations maximize their performance.”
The Twine Team. Photographer: Noi Einav
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Porat reflected:
“There have been a lot of great memories made working with the company so far. One of my favorite ones came from a validation call with a major financial institution. When explaining the problem to one of the company’s directors, and presenting how our solution can solve a very specific task for them, a look of shock swept across her face. “For almost a decade, I’ve been Alex,” she said in sharp realization. This made us understand we were onto a really great idea, and that IAM is only the beginning.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Porat explained:
“Alex is Twine’s first AI Digital Employee. Alex learns, understands, and takes away the burden of Identity and Access Management (IAM) tasks – proactively completing the organization’s cyber objectives.”
“To maximize efficiency, enhance employee productivity, and reduce the attack surface, Alex can help, for instance:
- — Design IAM processes (for example, a User Access Review [UAR] process, etc.)
- — Autonomously execute IAM tasks for them
- — Monitor key KPIs in the user’s IAM program”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Porat noted:
“Since launching, Alex saved thousands of work hours for our customers and was onboarded to cybersecurity teams in new organizations. We’re happy to see the impact Alex brings to these teams and we’re excited for what the future holds for security organizations who augment their capabilities with AI Digital Employees.”
“Just like human employees, the more access and trust given by the manager, the more Alex improves. In recent months, Twine added more integrations and additional platform features. We enhanced Alex’s capabilities to support higher volumes and scales, and improved specific use cases.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Porat cited:
“We managed to create a lot of buzz immediately after the company came out of stealth; We secured product deployments with major customers and saw how Alex joined their security teams and closed the gap between their cyber workload and capacity restraints; We have brought great talent to join us, including Colin Blou as our CRO, who in his last role helped establish the market as the CRO at GEM Security.”
Funding
When asking Porat about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“Twine Security completed a seed funding round of $12M, led by Dell Technologies Capital and TenEleven. We are also backed by amazing angel investors including the founders of Wiz.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Porat assessed:
“Staff costs represent the largest share of security budgets, accounting for 37% of the total, according to the 2024 Security Budget Benchmark Summary Report. So, the TAM for all of Twine’s AI Digital Employees in cybersecurity is very significant according to our assessments.”
“Even if we zoom in and only look at the TAM for Alex, our Identity and Access Management (IAM) expert, the number remains substantial: According to Gartner, the Access Management (AM) market totaled $5.8 billion in 2023, and it continues to grow, with a 17.6% growth that year. We are looking at a market that’s bigger than AM alone which also includes Identity Management, and therefore, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of this opportunity.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Porat affirmed:
“Twine builds digital cybersecurity employees who execute tasks from A to Z to help cyber teams close the talent gap.”
“Finally, we present a technology that fully replicates – and outperforms – traditional cyber execution capabilities, with three key differentiators from the competition:
1.) Proactive cyber execution – Our first digital employee Alex, can proactively and fully execute organizations’ cyber objectives from A to Z.
2.) Cyber performance that always gets better – Twine’s AI Digital Employees constantly improve. They acquire new sets of skills, and adapt to changing environments to accommodate your organization’s specific objectives.
3.) Peace of mind at a fraction of the cost – Our Digital Employees take care of cyber workload as directed, so cyber teams can focus on more strategic matters. Each stage of work is being fully and seamlessly handled, including the most complicated exceptions.
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Porat concluded:
“The number of tasks cyber teams need to address increases constantly, so our ambitious goal is to build the AI cybersecurity workforce of tomorrow that will help them achieve their goals.”
“Identity is a critical attack vector for organizations, so that’s where we start.”
“But the vision is more broad. The cybersecurity industry is trending more toward integrated platforms, so we see a future where all security teams equip their teams with Twine Digital AI employees who take work off their plates and give them more time to focus on strategic objectives.”
“To get there, we plan to add new AI cybersecurity Digital Employees to our product offering, enhance Alex’s capabilities in Identity and Access Management (IAM), grow our research and development, data, marketing, and sales teams, strengthen our channel partner network, and expand our US client base by providing solutions that meet our customers’ evolving needs.”
