No. 33: Asaf Kochan, Assaf Rappaport, Ofer Yanai: Israeli hi-tech power

Asaf Kochan

Brig. General (Res.) Asaf Kochan is co-founder and president of Sentra and a former commander of the IDF Intelligence Unit 8200 (Israel’s NSA), which has stared down some of the world’s worst nation-state and criminal cyber attackers.

In an August Forbes article, he flagged the rising opportunities and threats of generative artificial intelligence on defense and in hacking, especially against third-party providers and those in a country’s and business’s supply chain.

“Third-party breaches are happening more often and causing more damage. This means that organizations need to take action to protect themselves. The substantial impact of UnitedHealth’s breach is an example of how detrimental it can be if a strong data security posture isn’t implemented,” wrote Kochan.

He added, “As security threats become more advanced and regulations evolve, using innovative solutions like GenAI [on defense] is no longer optional; it’s a necessity to keep pace.”

Given his diverse top-level military and business experience in planning, coordinating, and implementing national policy in cyberspace, Kochan has a unique perspective on what matters the most in cyber security.

Besides the special background of Kochan and of many of Sentra’s employees, his cyber defense firm is set aside from other competitors because it adopts a data-centric approach to cloud security.

Many cyber defense firms defend their clients using firewalls, which protect a company’s entire digital perimeter, computer infrastructure, and endpoints.

In contrast, Kochan has told The Jerusalem Post that Sentra is dedicated to “understanding your data. Not all data is equal. We scan, and we discover and classify your entire data and your environment and build a catalog of your most sensitive data assets, whether customer data or your intellectual property (IP).”

The former IDF Unit 8200 chief stated, “We assume many ‘crown jewels’ in your environment you are not aware of. We use an advanced algorithm and machine learning to pull in your environment. Often, we found substantial amounts of data that you did not know you had.”

Assaf Rappaport

Assaf Rappaport is the co-founder and CEO of Wiz, a rapidly growing cloud security company launched in 2020 in New York. Its founders are Israeli and it maintains significant operations in Tel Aviv.

According to Forbes, Wiz had a $12 billion valuation in May of this year. In July, it walked away from a reported $23 billion acquisition offer from Google, based on Rappaport’s belief that the company could significantly outgrow that offer by going public.

Wiz software scans storage providers, including clients like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Kubernetes, to zone in on cyber security risks, evaluating vulnerabilities that malicious actors could exploit to hack cloud resources or other data. It also works with clients like Fox, Morgan Stanley, and LVMH.

The company was always growing rapidly, with revenue surpassing $100 million already in 2023 as it took on a daring and audacious approach to hiring fast, raising funds, and going after massive multinational clients.

In a LinkedIn post, Rappaport wrote, “When people ask me what sets Wiz on such a strong growth path, my answer is simple: a relentless focus on delivering real value to our customers. That’s exactly what today’s launch of Wiz Code is all about.”

“Wiz has become more than just a single product. We’re now a full platform built on one unified tech stack, which sets us apart from others. We have to keep innovating… By bridging the gap between security and development, we’re making sure cloud risks are caught and fixed directly in the code before they turn into big issues.”

Previously, Rappaport was general manager of Microsoft Israel and CEO of Adallom. Rappaport also served in Unit 8200 during his IDF service.

Ofer Yanai

The early Zionists drained malaria-filled swamps in Israel to make the land habitable, developed efficient agricultural methods to grow produce in the desert, and worked by the sweat of their brows to build the foundations of the State of Israel. Following that tradition, Israeli multi-millionaire Ofer Yanai founded and grew the renewable energy company Nofar Energy.

Fourty-nine-year-old Yanai, the second of eight children from a national-religious home, was born to a Tunisian-immigrant father and a Libyan-immigrant mother in 1975. He grew up in Yavne, a city in central Israel.

Despite early struggles, such as attempting to establish a fax-based food delivery company (this was before the internet) called go4it that failed to achieve success, his persistence would ultimately pay off.

Yanai holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master’s degree with honors in Business Administration from Ben-Gurion University.

Later, in 2011, Yanai founded Nofar Energy. He encountered hurdles again when, his initial project installing solar panels on communities in the South failed, costing him hundreds of thousands of shekels he had invested out of his own pocket.

He never gave up, though, and in 2020, the company went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, marking the second-largest IPO in Israel. Currently, the company, of which Yanai owns roughly a quarter, is worth approximately NIS 3.15 billion. Yanai, today, is the chairman, founder, and controlling shareholder of Nofar Energy.

The company now operates in Israel, the UK, the US, Serbia, Italy, Romania, Spain, Poland, and Germany. In 2018, it established the first floating solar panel system in Israel. The company initiates, constructs, and operates renewable energy facilities. It was the first company in Israel to use floating panels, storage facilities, and microgrid systems.

Yanai’s company is instrumental in bringing clean energy to communities across Israel and beyond. Worldwide, the company boasts 1,110 MW in connected and ready-to-be-connected solar projects and generates over 3,000 MW through renewable energy.

Yanai leads the company’s global and Israeli operations as chairman of the board while also pursuing philanthropic work as the chairman of the Yanai Foundation, through which he supports various projects and fields, including education, healthcare, peripheral development, foster families, and more.

Last year, he bought 51% ownership of Hapoel Tel Aviv Basketball Club before purchasing an additional 30%. This year, he became a shareholder in Channel 13 in a global collaboration with the channel’s owner, Len Blavatnik.