Business and technologyגילי רענן

Gili Raanan

Gili Raanan is an Israeli venture capitalist and software entrepreneur who founded Sanctum, nLayers and the venture fund Cyberstarts.

born 1969Founding CyberstartsSeed investment in WizFounding Sanctum and nLayersCo-inventing CAPTCHA

Occupation: inventor
Education: Tel Aviv University
Founded: nLayers (2003), Sanctum (1997), Cyberstarts (2018)

Gili Raanan was born in 1969 in Kfar Saba

Gili Raanan was born in 1969 in Kfar Saba to Miki and Edna. He studied computer science at Tel Aviv University and later earned an MBA at its Recanati business school.

He served for several years in Unit 8200. He was part of a team that received the Israel Defense Prize in 1996.

In 1997 he founded Sanctum, which created the web application firewall AppShield and the testing tool AppScan. In 2003 he founded nLayers, which EMC bought in 2006 for 50 million dollars. He is also credited as a co-inventor of CAPTCHA.

In 2009 he joined Sequoia Capital in Israel as a general partner. In 2018 he founded Cyberstarts, an early stage cybersecurity fund, and in 2020 he led the seed round of Wiz. In 2024 Calcalist published an investigation into the fund's practices, and the fund said no security chief was paid for buying products.

In 2025 he bought 10% of the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball club. He lives in Michmoret, and in 2026 he lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony.