Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks is in advanced talks to acquire the Israeli startup Koi, according to various Israeli media outlets. The one-year-old company has a price tag of approximately $400 million, says the sources close to the deal.
The acquisition follows a series of Palo Alto Networks’ multi-billion dollar acquisitions including those of CyberArk, Chronosphere and Protect AI, according to CTECH. Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora was on a visit to Israel last month meeting with CyberArk employees and evaluating local startups for potential deals. He emphasized that the rapid rise of AI demands has led to the consolidation of endpoint security solutions.
Koi was founded in 2024 by veterans of the Israeli army’s elite 8200 Intelligence Corps technology unit. The startup attracted global attention last year when its founders uncovered a major security gap in the VSCode Marketplace. Using a fake extension, they managed to “infect” over 300 organizations within a week to underscore the need for better oversight.
This experiment led to the creation of the Supply Chain Gateway. This platform serves as a central control point for all incoming software within a company. Using the AI engine “Wings,” Koi identifies threats that traditional scanners often miss.
Although Koi has only raised $48 million in capital to date, the platform already protects over 500,000 endpoints at several Fortune 50 companies. For Koi’s investors and founders, including Team8 and Battery Ventures, the deal marks a rapid and lucrative exit.
