Cybersecurity startup Lema has come out of stealth to raise $24 million

Lema, a promising cybersecurity startup created by veterans of Israel's elite 8200 intelligence unit, is stepping into the spotlight with the announcement of a $24 million Series A funding round. This investment, led by Tel Aviv-based Team8, aims to enhance the security landscape by addressing the risks associated with third-party vendors accessing company systems. Eddie Dovzhik, co-founder and CEO of Lema, emphasized the long-standing neglect of third-party risk management within the cybersecurity field. "A problem of this magnitude deserves a solution that actually solves it," he stated in an interview with Business Insider. The cybersecurity sector is experiencing a boom, having raised nearly $14 billion in 2025, marking a 47% increase from the previous year, according to Pinpoint Search Group. Founded in 2023 by Dovzhik alongside Omer Yehudai and Tomer Roizman, Lema was born from their desire to innovate in an area they felt was critically underserved. Dovzhik explained, "We started the long and tedious ideation process, searching for a significant issue that had a major impact on businesses which current solutions failed to address." They identified third-party risk management as a critical challenge, particularly as organizations increasingly depend on numerous external vendors, including cloud providers and AI startups, that often hold sensitive data and system access. According to Gartner, 60% of companies now engage over 1,000 external vendors, and a report from McKinsey & Company revealed that nearly one-third of recent cyber breaches stemmed from third-party relationships. Dovzhik noted the rising complexity of these relationships, particularly with the influx of AI vendors that introduce unique risks. Recent high-profile breaches, such as the Coinbase incident affecting around 70,000 users and a 2024 CrowdStrike outage that disrupted major sectors, underscore the urgency of addressing these vulnerabilities. Many organizations still rely on outdated methods like spreadsheets and checklists to manage their third-party risks. In contrast, Lema leverages AI technology to provide deeper insights into potential vulnerabilities. "We developed an AI agent that operates like a vulnerability researcher," Dovzhik said. "Our ambition was to create a transformative solution that fundamentally alters how third-party risk management is approached."