Canadian identity security company 1Password today announced that it has acquired Israeli just-in-time access company Apono. 1Password will pay more than $250 million for the company founded by entrepreneurs Rom Carmel and Ofir Stein. Following the acquisition, the Canadian company will establish a development center that will employ over fifty people in Israel, initially with more hires expected.

This is a handsome exit for the entrepreneurs and 80 employees, who hold the majority of the company's shares, and for the company's three main investors: the USVP fund represented by Jacques Benkoski, which has also previously invested in Shlomo Kramer's startups such as Imperva and Trusteer, the New Era Fund and Miron Capital. Ofir Erlich, one of the founders of the unicorn EON, is also an early investor in the company, according to PitchBook. Estimates are that each of the three funds holds a stake ranging from 10%-15%, which has seen the company's value more than double in just over six months. Last November, Apono raised funds at a valuation of $115 million. To date, the company raised about $55 million.

Apono has developed a security solution for managing access permissions to cloud applications and enterprise databases, with its approach being dynamic and based on the idea of granting precise permission according to the nature of the activity of each employee in an enterprise or application, and only for the required period of time (Just-In-Time and Just-Enough).

The company serves dozens of customers across the US, including Fortune 500 companies, US, European and Israeli technology and insurance companies. Among its customers are OpenWeb, Bloomreach and HPE.

The company was founded in 2022 by CEO Rom Carmel and CTO Ofir Stein, who have been working in the fields of DevOps and security for over 20 years together. Carmel served in R&D management positions in the Cyber Division of the Prime Minister's Office, where he gained experience in data security in organizations. Stein served as an officer in the Israel Air Force’s Ofek unit, was one of the first developers at Logz.io and led the development of one of the company's core products. Rom and Stein witnessed at first hand the security posed by lax permissions in many organizations and decided to develop a solution for precise management of this challenge.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 15, 2026.

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