OneLayer, a 5G network protector, announced today its launch out of stealth along with a $8.2 million seed funding round led by Grove Ventures and Viola Ventures. Additional investments were made by angel investors from leading cyber and cloud companies, including Avi Shua, founder and CEO of Orca Security, Ariel Zeitlin, founder of Guardicore, Gonen Fink, Head of Palo Alto Networks Israel R&D Center, and the founders of Epsagon, Nitzan Shapira, CEO and Ran Ribenzaft, CTO.

Vulnerabilities in LTE/5G networks

Until the advent of private LTE/5G networks, enterprise security and cellular security have existed in parallel, but different, orbits. That reality has now changed, as more and more companies are implementing their own LTE/5G networks. The reason for this change is that enterprises have a lot to benefit from establishing private LTE/5G networks. It allows for ultra-reliable, high-speed, low-latency, power-efficient, high-density wireless connectivity. An increase in connectivity reliability and a dedicated bandwidth with capacity, range, and connectivity of IoT devices across vast areas is an attractive commodity for many of the world’s largest businesses, especially in industrial environments such as manufacturing plants, logistics centers, and ports. The number of private LTE/5G networks to be implemented by enterprises is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, and with this new increase comes a new challenge: keeping these networks safe.

While traditional enterprise security tools have evolved over the last decade to achieve desired standards, most of those tools do not apply to the cellular domain. And so, security for these networks has lagged significantly behind; the reality is that enterprises need a new solution for keeping their networks secure.

OneLayer has met that market demand and created a platform that provides organizations with enterprise-grade security on par with the standards of protection that IT and OT networks have access to, but without requiring them to become cellular experts. OneLayer combines a deep knowledge of both cybersecurity and cellular technology to help enterprises close a significant vulnerability in their networks. The company’s technology enables network administrators to limit device exposure to those registered on the network by exploring and listing the enterprise domain’s existing security tools, integrating them with the enterprise’s authorization, authentication, and accounting tools (AAA), and extending their capabilities to the organization’s cellular domain. OneLayer provides a simple, LAN-like way to control their private 5G networks and thus efficiently and effectively addresses the unique challenges enterprises are facing with cellular security. Now, OneLayer customers can build expansive private networks with the highest levels of security tailored for their specific needs.

“OneLayer is taking on an incredible challenge in addressing the gap in enterprise and cellular security and is building a solution for a very large addressable market. They are giving organizations the ability to safely leverage the benefits of a private 5G cellular network.” - Renana Ashkenazi, General Partner at Grove Ventures.

With the seed capital, OneLayer will build its product suite for the desired enterprise-grade security and deploy it for customers internationally. They will also create a cyber risk assessment and validation lab based on private LTE and 5G technology in collaboration with tier 1 players.

The company was founded in September 2021, by Dave Mor (CEO) and Or Turgeman (VP R&D).