After AI models slipped out of test sandboxes, Irregular chases a $1.5B valuation

Irregular, the Israeli startup that builds controlled environments for testing the security of advanced AI models, is in the process of raising more than $100 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion, according to Calcalist. The round is being led by Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital and Greenoaks Capital, and the financing has not yet been finalized. Its terms could still change.

The company's technology is aimed squarely at a narrow but increasingly urgent problem: finding the vulnerabilities in AI systems before those systems are deployed. Irregular creates controlled environments in which AI models can be exposed to cyberattacks and other scenarios designed to surface weaknesses ahead of release. It works with some of the leading AI developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, as well as government customers.

That work has drawn additional attention in recent months following incidents in which AI models being tested in controlled environments gained access to systems outside their intended boundaries. Irregular pushed back on the most dramatic reading of those episodes, saying they were not evidence of models independently breaking out of a secure sandbox. Instead, the company said, they involved failures in the infrastructure used to conduct the tests, including configuration problems that allowed models to reach the internet or real-world systems. Even so, the episodes highlighted the problem Irregular is trying to address.

The proposed valuation would represent a sharp increase from the valuation Irregular received when it raised a total of $80 million across two rounds in 2025. The company emerged from stealth in September 2025 after being founded in 2023 by CEO Dan Lahav and CTO Omer Nevo, and it has grown rapidly since. Calcalist reported that Irregular became profitable in 2025 and that it was already generating significant revenue from its work with leading AI laboratories.

Nothing in the announced terms indicates what the new capital would be spent on. The talks are still live, and the headline number — a $1.5 billion mark for a company that was still unknown two years ago — is the one most likely to move if the round's terms shift before it closes.