Independent analyst recognition, rapid enterprise growth, measurable customer outcomes and investor confidence reinforce Upwind’s position as a runtime-first cloud security leader

Upwind, the runtime-first cloud security platform, today announced broad, independent validation of its leadership in the cloud security market. Consistent recognition across industry evaluations, enterprise customer adoption and investor confidence, underscores growing market consensus around Upwind’s runtime approach and its alignment with how modern cloud security is evolving toward real-time, runtime protection. This validation comes as Latio Tech debuts its 2026 Application Security Market Report today, naming Upwind a Runtime Innovator and API Security Innovator.

“Upwind is redefining what modern cloud application security looks like,” said James Berthoty, Founder and CEO of Latio Tech. “As one of the first platforms to unify cloud, workload, and API telemetry through a runtime-first architecture, Upwind delivers end-to-end detection with the real-time context security teams need to act decisively. By leveraging live network and application behavior, it enables more accurate, environment-specific dynamic API testing and reduces alert fatigue through function-level prioritization, focusing teams only on vulnerabilities actively executing in production. That combination of technical depth and practical impact is what sets market leaders apart.”

Leadership in modern cloud security is determined by the market and earned over time through consistent validation across multiple independent signals, including analyst recognition, measurable customer outcomes, enterprise scale and investor confidence. These signals reflect what the market is rewarding. Across all of these, Upwind continues to show clear momentum as enterprises increasingly scale runtime-first cloud security to focus on what actually matters most in their environments, making them faster, more accurate and more confident.

A Consistent Pattern of Recognition

Since entering the CNAPP market just two and a half years ago, Upwind has built clear momentum across analyst and industry recognition, enterprise customer growth, and investor confidence. Top analyst firms have consistently recognized Upwind for its modern runtime-first architecture and ability to deliver measurable security outcomes at scale, while customers continue to scale rapidly to address real-world cloud risk. This convergence of analyst validation, customer outcomes, and a recently announced $250 million Series B investment underscores growing market consensus around Upwind’s strategy and long-term leadership in modern cloud security.

Recent Analyst and Industry Recognition:

Frost & Sullivan, CNADR Company of the Year

Frost & Sullivan named Upwind its 2025 Company of the Year in the Global Cloud-Native Application Detection and Response (CNADR) market. The firm cited Upwind’s innovation in runtime intelligence, its ability to unify previously siloed security tools into a single platform, and explosive growth exceeding 4,000% year over year.

“Upwind has redefined the CNAPP market by fully integrating runtime intelligence across its platform, offering a consolidated solution that unifies ADR, CDR, CSPM, CWPP, and application security. This unified platform is powered by real-time runtime intelligence. It goes beyond basic visibility to provide unified application and cloud infrastructure runtime visibility, giving security teams rich context to solve configuration, data, and code issues holistically. Upwind was the fastest-growing CNADR company in 2024, witnessing an explosive revenue growth of more than 4,000% YoY and continuing to maintain momentum in 2025.”

— Anh Tien Vu, Industry Principal Analyst, Frost & Sullivan

GigaOm, Container Security Leader and Outperformer

GigaOm positioned Upwind as a Leader and Outperformer in its Container Security Radar, 2025, due to rapid innovation velocity, frequent platform releases, emerging GenAI protection capabilities, and continued expansion of application-layer detection. The report emphasized Upwind’s ability to reduce alert noise by up to 95% while delivering high-fidelity, runtime-informed security signals.

"Upwind is positioned as a Leader and Outperformer in the Innovation/Platform Play quadrant of the container security Radar chart. Upwind Container Security delivers comprehensive protection via a runtime-powered CNAPP architecture, combining eBPF sensors with agentless scanners for real-time threat detection and risk prioritization. Primary differentiators include a runtime-first approach versus posture-based solutions, GenAI-specific threat detection, up to 95% alert noise reduction, and zero-effort deployment capabilities."

- (McPhee, 2025) Source: McPhee, I. (2025, November 5). GigaOm Radar for Container Security Solutions v4. GigaOm.

QKS Group, SPARK Matrix™ CNAPP Leader

Upwind was named a CNAPP Leader in the 2025 SPARK Matrix™ for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms by QKS Group and received special recognition as an Emerging Innovator. QKS highlighted Upwind’s unified runtime intelligence, AI-driven analytics, and application-layer protection as key differentiators driving both technology excellence and customer impact.

“Upwind represents a progressive and unified approach to cloud-native application protection by combining runtime intelligence, AI-driven analytics, and automated compliance into a single platform that mirrors the evolving needs of the CNAPP market. Through eBPF-based runtime visibility & signals from cloud activity logs, it delivers deep insights into workloads, processes, and network behavior, enabling precise threat detection, fewer false positives, and faster incident response across Kubernetes and containerized environments. Its integrated API and data-flow security extend protection to the application layer, supporting real-time risk management and improved operational resilience. With a vision centered on AI-powered automation and a roadmap focused on adaptive, scalable, and proactive cloud security, Upwind continues to position itself as a key innovator driving the future of cloud protection.”

— Shiva Bhardwaj, Analyst, QKS Group

Latio Tech, Cloud Security and CADR Leader

Upwind was named a two-time Leader in Cloud Security and Cloud Application Detection and Response (CADR) in the 2025 Cloud Security Report from Latio Tech. Latio cited Upwind for extending runtime intelligence into posture management, bridging live context and preventive controls into a single platform. The report also recognized Upwind as the first CNAPP to deliver API security through Layer-7 traffic inspection and ADR techniques, a defining capability of the CADR leader category.

“Few vendors are as aligned with where the market is heading as Upwind. By correlating runtime telemetry with posture data, Upwind exemplifies how next-generation platforms are closing the gap between detection and actionable response.” — James Berthoty, Founder and CEO, Latio Tech

ISMG, CNAPP Market Guide, Top-Right Quadrant Placement

Upwind was recognized in the top-right quadrant of the 2025 CNAPP Market Guide from ISMG, produced using ISMG’s Apollo AI workflow engine. The methodology gathers and validates vendor data across public sources, including product documentation, analyst research, customer traction signals, investor filings, and regulatory disclosures, removing narrative bias and anchoring conclusions in verified, real-world evidence.

“We were pleased to feature Upwind in this year’s CNAPP Market Guide. Their runtime-focused architecture continues to resonate strongly with the needs we see across cloud-native security teams. Because our process is fully data-driven and rooted in verified information, Upwind’s capabilities emerged naturally and objectively in the research.” — Dan Vertan, Vice President, ISMG

Gartner, CNAPP Market Presence and Customer Validation

Gartner named Upwind a Vendor in three Gartner® Hype Cycles, including the Hype Cycle™ for Workload and Network Security, 2025 (14 July), the Hype Cycle™ for Container Technologies, 2025 (30 June), and the Hype Cycle™ for Platform Engineering, 2025 (25 June), under the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category. Upwind was also included in Gartner’s 2025 Market Guide for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms as one of the representative vendors helping shape this growing category.

In addition, Upwind is rated 4.9 out of 5 on Gartner® Peer Insights™ in the CNAPP category, based on verified customer reviews, reflecting strong satisfaction from security and engineering teams.

Customer Impact and Market Momentum

Additionally, Upwind has achieved 200% year-over-year customer logo growth, reflecting strong enterprise adoption across cloud-native organizations. Today, Upwind secures millions of workloads for global enterprises, including Waste Management, Siemens, Carvana, Roku, ClickUp, Wix, Nubank, Agoda, Peloton, Fiverr and BILL, helping security teams cut through noise and focus on what matters most. Customers using Upwind report a 98% reduction in security alerts and 60% fewer irrelevant CVEs, enabling teams to prioritize real risk using live runtime context rather than static signals. By grounding security decisions in runtime truth, Upwind continues to help define what modern, AI-driven cloud security must deliver.

The company’s recent $250 million Series B investment further reinforces market and investor confidence in Upwind’s strategy, execution, and long-term leadership in the cloud security category.

About Upwind

Upwind is the next-generation cloud security platform built to lead the Runtime revolution. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Upwind brings together a unified vision for cloud and application-layer protection, empowering organizations to run faster, detect threats earlier and secure their environments with unmatched precision. The company was founded by Amiram Shachar and the founding team behind Spot.io (acquired by NetApp for $450 million) and is backed by leading investors including Bessemer, Salesforce Ventures, Greylock, Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, Craft Ventures,TCV, Alta Park, Cerca Partners, Swish Ventures and Penny Jar Capital. Upwind has raised $430 million since its founding in 2022 and is trusted by forward-thinking enterprises globally to bring real-time runtime intelligence to modern cloud security. For more information or to schedule a demo, visit www.upwind.io.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260217536696/en/