AironWorks CEO: Founding a Cybersecurity SaaS in Israel With a One-Way Ticket

Terada Kanhi, CEO of AironWorks, describes building a Unit 8200-backed cybersecurity SaaS from Israel after arriving the day rockets hit Tel Aviv.

• Over 85–90% of major cyber incidents originate from human error, per Verizon and other studies; AironWorks targets this gap with AI-generated phishing simulations.
• Global cybercrime damages exceed ¥4 trillion annually and have grown every year since 2019, making security awareness a reliably expanding market.
• AironWorks’ CTO is a former Unit 8200 hacker; the unit selects top high-school graduates via invitation-only exams and builds systems in three weeks that normally take six months.
• GAFA recruits Unit 8200 graduates in their mid-20s with total compensation including equity around ¥45 million, making them among the most competed-for engineers globally.
• Development is split across three regions: Israel handles core R&D and architecture, Eastern Europe handles implementation, and the Philippines handles QA — enabling a 24-hour build cycle.
• Terada arrived in Israel on July 12, 2014 — rocket attacks from Gaza began the next day and continued for a month — while he simultaneously incorporated his first company, Aniwo.
• When Terada moved, fewer than 100 Japanese nationals were in Israel for business reasons and zero had founded startups there, which he read as a blue ocean signal.
• AironWorks’ target is to become the category-defining SaaS in cybersecurity the way Salesforce owns CRM or Slack owns workplace communication.

2025-06-26 · Watch on YouTube