Cyera, a US-based startup offering data security powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has raised $100m in a Series B funding round.

Accel led the round, which brings the total funds raised to $160m, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and existing investors Sequoia and Cyberstarts.

Cyera offers a platform that leverages large language models to discover, classify, and secure clients’ sensitive data.

It accesses a company’s data and understands the business objectives to enable security teams to comprehend the data they have, how it is utilised, and how to apply the proper security controls, the company said.

The platform’s unified policy engine finds misconfigurations, suggests particular access controls, and creates fresh data security policies, Cyera added.

Cyera co-founder and CEO Yotam Segev said: “Cyera’s vision is to enable every business to realise the full potential of their data using AI — collaboration, connection with customers, insights that fuel innovation — to power a new era of development, growth, and productivity.

“This investment confirms that Cyera is on the right path to help Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) meet their most pressing challenge — securing their data in the cloud era.”

Accel partner Philippe Botteri said: “Cyera far exceeds the capabilities of other vendors in this space, already capitalising on technologies like generative AI and natural language processing.

“This team is an innovation powerhouse adept at building impactful technology that protects critical data assets and is well aligned with its customers to address the data security issues that keep CISOs up at night.”