The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2025-2026
Oak bets an AI-native identity OS replaces legacy IAM; $60M seed from Accel, CRV, Greylock
Ex-Ermetic founder Shai Morag builds Oak, an AI-native identity control plane for humans, machines, and AI agents; $60M seed, GA with enterprise clients.
Oak
What the business is
Oak sells an AI-native identity access management platform - one control plane that maps, monitors, and remediates access for employees, machines, and AI agents across all applications.
Starting capital：$60M seed co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock
How it started
After Tenable bought his cloud-identity startup Ermetic for $265M in 2023, Shai Morag left and told his wife he would retire; instead he co-founded Oak with Tal Marom, a product lead he met at Tenable, after months of interviews with 100 CISOs and IAM leaders who said identity was broken but nobody had consolidated it.
What happened
Oak stayed in stealth, raised a $60M seed co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock (with AlphaDrive Ventures, Hetz Ventures, and angels) in late 2025, built a 50-person team across the U.S. and Israel, and emerged on 2026-07-15 with the product generally available and deployed by enterprise clients, plus a ChatGPT-like interface and auto-remediation that requests approval before acting.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Oak is a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup betting that identity management must be rebuilt from scratch for a workforce that now includes machines and AI agents. Its product is a single AI-native control plane that maps every employee, machine, and agent identity, watches what access is actually used, and removes permissions that are no longer needed - in real time rather than during periodic reviews.
The company is the fourth act of serial entrepreneur Shai Morag, who sold his first startup to Mellanox, Secdo to Palo Alto Networks in 2018, and Ermetic to Tenable for $265M in 2023. After Tenable's CEO Amit Yoran died, Morag left, planned to retire, and instead co-founded Oak with Tal Marom - a bet Accel made easier by an informal standing offer to back whatever Morag built next.
The product bet is that legacy vendors like Okta and Microsoft's Entra are bolting agent features onto platforms designed for human employees, while Oak starts from raw evidence: AI connectors that map actual usage, a ChatGPT-like interface for investigating access issues, and automated remediation that generates a step-by-step plan and asks for approval before fixing.
Oak emerged from stealth on 2026-07-15 with its product generally available and deployed by enterprise clients (names undisclosed), a 50-person team, and a $60M seed co-led by Accel, CRV, and Greylock - one of the largest seed rounds for an Israeli cybersecurity company. The company is actively hiring in the U.S., where most of its staff will soon be based.
What has to be true
- Legacy IAM vendors bolt agent features onto human-era platforms; Oak was built from the start for humans, machines, and agents.
- Morag's track record - Secdo to Palo Alto Networks, Ermetic to Tenable for $265M - gave Accel confidence to fund him at inception.
- 100 CISO interviews shaped a risk-based, continuous model instead of the industry's periodic manual reviews.
- A $60M seed at inception funded a 50-person team and a generally available product before the public launch.
What can be applied
A founder with two exits can raise a giant seed on reputation - but backers only fund 'born as a giant' when the product is a category change, not an increment on the legacy stack.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-02 Oak is post-launch and hiring, particularly in the U.S., with the product generally available and deployed by unnamed enterprise clients. Morag has said this is his last company and that he will 'go big or go home'; no revenue or customer-count figures have been disclosed.
Sources
- Backed by $60M in funding, Oak steps out of stealth to fix the identity mess that AI agents are making worse
- Identity management startup Oak launches with $60M in funding
- Building the AI-Native Identity Operating System: Why We're Backing Oak
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card