Hilt

Hilt is building a data security and insider-threat platform that operates at the operating-system kernel level to watch how data actually moves within an organization, rather than relying solely on access logs or permission records. Its premise is that many damaging data breaches do not look anomalous at the access-control layer because the user or process involved has legitimate credentials; the platform instead tries to flag abnormal data movement patterns even when the underlying access was fully authorized.

Founded in San Francisco, Hilt is led by CEO William Cielen, with some reporting naming Alex Genest and Zin Bitar as additional co-founders. The company raised a $500,000 pre-seed round led by Pear VC in October 2025, followed by a $4.2 million seed round in October 2026 led by Array Ventures, with Verdict Capital, Base10 Partners, Brickyard, Liquid 2 Ventures, and others participating, bringing total funding to roughly $4.7 million.

At this early stage, Hilt has not disclosed named customers or independent test results. Its differentiator is architectural — kernel-level visibility into data movement rather than endpoint-agent or network-layer monitoring — but as a pre-revenue-stage company, that approach remains unproven at scale against the more established data-loss-prevention and insider-risk vendors it will ultimately compete with.