What the business is
Cylake builds an AI-powered, hardware-based security system that runs on premises for highly regulated organisations.
Starting capital
$45M from Greylock.
How it started
Nir Zuk cofounded Palo Alto Networks in 2005 — now the biggest standalone cybersecurity company, his stake estimated at $1.4 billion by Forbes — retired as CTO, and started Cylake with Wilson Xu, who led Palo Alto's engineering team, and SentinelOne cofounder Udi Shamir.
What happened
Zuk frames the market the way he framed 2005 in reverse: then, people said 'you're crazy, nobody's going to use the cloud to consume cybersecurity services'; now they say nobody starts an on-prem hardware company in 2026. Greylock's Chandna sees 'a hundred billion dollar plus opportunity' in the roughly third of customers — defense, regulated industries, sovereign nations — that can never use cloud for sensitive data.
What has to be true
The wedge customers are Zuk's own former prospects: buyers who wanted Palo Alto products but couldn't run cloud-delivered security.
The same VC partnership backed both bets 26 years apart — conviction from someone who watched the first one pay off.
The founding team pairs Palo Alto's engineering lead with SentinelOne's cofounder, crediting the hardware ambition.
What can be applied
The contrarian repeat is credible when the founder once won the same bet from the opposite direction — and is selling to customers his old company structurally cannot serve.
Aftermath
As of the March 2026 launch, Cylake is venture-backed at $45 million and staffed with ex-Palo Alto and SentinelOne talent; no product ship date or named customers have been announced.
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