Oak's $60M Gambit: Can an AI-Native OS Finally Fix Enterprise Identity?

TEL AVIV, Israel and SAN FRANCISCO – July 15, 2026 – In the high-stakes world of cybersecurity, identity has long been the Gordian Knot—a complex, tangled mess that serves as the primary gateway for attackers. Today, a new company, armed with a staggering $60 million in seed funding and a team of industry veterans, emerged from stealth to declare it has the sword sharp enough to cut through it. Oak, founded by serial cybersecurity entrepreneur Shai Morag, is officially launching its AI-native Identity Operating System, a platform designed not just to manage but to fundamentally rewire how enterprises govern the sprawling universe of digital identities.

The massive funding round, co-led by venture capital giants Accel, Greylock Partners, and CRV, is more than just a vote of confidence; it's a high-stakes bet that Oak has finally cracked the code on a problem that has plagued the industry for decades—a problem that is now becoming exponentially more dangerous in the age of AI.

The Identity Breaking Point

For years, Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) have been fighting a losing battle. The modern enterprise is a chaotic ecosystem of identities. It’s not just employees and contractors; it’s a dizzying array of service accounts, APIs, cloud workloads, and now, a rapidly multiplying population of autonomous AI agents. This 'identity sprawl' has stretched legacy security tools, often built for a slower, human-centric world, to their breaking point. Most companies, if asked, still cannot definitively say who—or what—has access to their critical systems at any given moment.

Industry research confirms this grim reality. User and identity management consistently rank as a top priority for security leaders, yet many are still mired in multi-year journeys toward a Zero Trust architecture, hampered by fragmented tools and manual processes. The situation has become so dire that Gartner predicts 70% of CISOs will be forced to adopt advanced identity intelligence capabilities by 2028 just to cope.

The recent explosion of AI has poured gasoline on this fire. Every AI agent deployed to automate tasks or access data becomes a new identity that needs to be secured. These non-human actors operate at machine speed, creating a phenomenon some experts are calling 'identity entropy'—where identities multiply faster than security guardrails can be built. Worse, many of these agents currently operate in an 'identity gray area,' borrowing the credentials of human users or shared service accounts. This practice shatters the foundational security principle of least privilege and creates a massive, unaudited attack surface. One recent survey found that 68% of organizations cannot even distinguish between actions taken by a human versus an AI agent, a catastrophic blind spot for any security team.

An AI-Native Foundation

Oak's central thesis is that you cannot solve a next-generation problem with previous-generation technology. While incumbent identity providers like SailPoint, Okta, and CyberArk are racing to integrate AI features, Oak argues these are merely features 'bolted on' to outdated architectures. Oak, by contrast, was built from the ground up as an 'AI-native' platform.

"We spent months speaking with more than 100 CISOs and IAM leaders, and they all share the same problems of running too many disconnected tools, being unable to see how access is used, and no way to govern AI agents," said Tal Marom, Oak's co-founder and Chief Product Officer. "Just as CNAPP consolidated the fragmented cloud security stack, identity is now at that same inflection point, and Oak is designed to be the platform that brings it all together."

The company's platform starts by deploying an AI-powered connector framework that can plug into virtually any system—cloud, on-premise, SaaS, or homegrown—in hours instead of months. From there, it ingests raw data to build what it calls a 'live identity graph,' a continuously updated map of every identity and its access rights. By comparing what access an identity has versus what it actually uses, the system's AI engine makes real-time risk decisions, flagging excessive permissions and automating remediation. It's a shift from static, periodic reviews to a dynamic, continuously enforced governance model for humans, machines, and AI agents alike.

A Bet on the Builder

The audacity of Oak's mission is matched only by the track record of its founder. The $60 million seed investment becomes far more understandable when you look at Shai Morag's history. He is a rare breed of serial entrepreneur who has successfully navigated the cybersecurity landscape not once or twice, but three times before. He previously founded and sold Integrity-Project to NVIDIA's Mellanox, Secdo to Palo Alto Networks, and most recently, the cloud security firm Ermetic to Tenable for approximately $265 million in 2023.

This history provides more than just credibility; it offers a deep, hard-won understanding of the problem space. "I've built several companies in this space, so I understand why identity has stayed broken for so long," said Morag, Oak's CEO. "The tools were never built to work as one, and adding more of them was never going to fix it. Oak is the platform the industry has needed for twenty years, and could never build until now."

Investors are clearly banking on this experience. Andrei Brasoveanu, a Partner at Accel, which also backed Morag's previous company Ermetic, was unequivocal in his support. "Backing Shai a second time was one of the easiest decisions we've ever made," he stated. "He and his team have spent their careers solving the hardest problems in enterprise security, and identity is the biggest one left standing. Oak has the team, the timing, and the technology to take on the whole category."

The $60 Million Signal

In any venture capital climate, a $60 million seed round is an outlier. It’s a statement. The investment signals that top-tier firms like Accel, Greylock, and CRV see not just a company, but a category-defining opportunity. Greylock, known for its 'AI-first' investment thesis, is clearly betting that Oak's foundational approach is the correct one for the new era of cybersecurity. The capital infusion allows Oak to bypass the typical, iterative startup journey and compete with established giants from day one, aggressively hiring talent and scaling its already generally available product.

This funding isn't just about building a product; it's about launching a movement to fundamentally change how identity security is perceived and executed. With the backing of seasoned investors and the leadership of a proven builder, Oak is not just entering the market—it's attempting to redraw the map entirely. For beleaguered security teams facing an onslaught of new threats, the promise of a single, intelligent control plane for all identities isn't just an innovation; it's a lifeline.