Raanan: Cyberstarts runs a 12-month 'Sunrise process' to achieve product-market fit
Gilly Raanan · Wiz: $6M Seed → $32B Exit | Inside the Biggest Cybersecurity Deal Ever · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea · Mar 11, 2026 · at 49:00
Gilly Raanan, founder of cybersecurity venture firm Cyberstarts, explains how the firm engages with technical founders immediately after wiring seed investment.
0:00 / 0:51exact quote · 52.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“What we do, what I do is founders are the first meeting post investment. So check, you know, was written, money was wired. It's in their bank, and now we are sitting and we are starting what we call Sunrise process. And Sunrise is our brand for a product market fit exercise that would probably last 12 months. So it starts with nothing, and it ends up with pain point that we know how to solve in a way that Mere mortals can use, and we already have software that's running in production at some large organizations in the U.S., and you sold maybe a little bit of licenses out of that software.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Gilly Raanan
Raanan: Israel possesses greater tech talent density than Silicon Valley
“You cannot get that density of talent anywhere else in the world. Definitely not in Silicon Valley, which spans over you know, significantly bigger geographical area.”
Raanan: An Israeli cybersecurity startup will reach a $50B valuation by 2032
“I'm pretty sure that in, in, in six years, maybe less, we'll see a fifty billion dollar and a hundred billion dollar cyber security company out of Israel. You know. I take it like take it like a fact, like, you know, the sun was, would rise tomorrow. You know,…”
Raanan: Cybersecurity must eliminate human operators to survive autonomous AI attacks
“The most important challenge for us as cyber security industry is to eliminate the men in the middle.
Making defenses completely run by self-aware, sophisticated mega agents.
And until we get to that point where we completely eliminate the men in the middle we…”
Raanan: Seed-stage product ideas and technology are noise compared to founder quality
“The idea and the technology at this stage, at the seed stage, is, is noise. It's part of the entropy. It's actually not helping me make the right decision. The best decision is to just watch the individual and decide if that's the individual you want to partne…”
Raanan: True company importance is measured by practitioner dependence, not ARR
“An important company is not necessarily measured by revenues or ARR or valuation. It's about, it's measured by how much the market, how much practitioners depend on you. Do they consider you as a vendor, one of their trusted partners? And there are many compan…”