San Francisco-based Vanta has signed an agreement to acquire Pillar Security, an AI security startup, for approximately $150 million in cash and stock. Refresh Miami reported the deal, citing Israeli technology publication Calcalist.
Pillar's team of more than 20 employees will join Vanta, and Pillar will become Vanta's Israeli research and development center. Pillar was founded in late 2023 and had raised just over $9 million in funding.
The company builds technology to identify AI systems inside organizations, test them for vulnerabilities and monitor their behavior in real time. Its researchers reported a vulnerability in the automation platform n8n and another in Google's Gemini CLI. Pillar also developed SAIL, an AI security framework that maps 91 risks across seven stages of the AI lifecycle. According to Pillar, the framework has passed 50,000 downloads.
The Florida angle
Pillar co-founder Dor Sarig relocated from Israel to South Florida with his family. In January he told Refresh Miami that he wanted to establish a lasting presence for the startup in the region and spoke of the area's AI talent.
The source does not say how the acquisition affects those plans for Miami.