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About
Shlomo Kramer is an Israeli-American serial entrepreneur, investor, venture capitalist, and pioneer in the cybersecurity and network security industry, particularly in network security and secure access service edge (SASE) technologies. Born in 1966 in Israel, he developed an early interest in technology during his military service in the Israel Defense Forces' elite Unit 8200, where he received training in signals intelligence and cybersecurity fundamentals. He earned a B.Sc. in computer science from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the late 1980s or a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University in 1988. His career took off in 1993 when he co-founded Check Point Software Technologies, a leading cybersecurity firm, with Gil Shwed (and Marius Nacht according to one source), where his technical leadership as CTO or as Vice President of Research and Development helped revolutionize firewall technology and establish him as a key figure in Israel's tech ecosystem. In 2002, he co-founded Imperva with Marius Nacht, where he served as CTO and later as CEO, establishing it as a key player in web application and data security; Imperva went public in 2011 and was acquired by Thoma Bravo in 2019 for $3.6 billion. He also co-founded Palo Alto Networks and Radware. In 2015, he founded Cato Networks, a cloud-native networking and security company and a leader in SASE technology, where he currently serves as CTO. Beyond founding companies, Kramer has been an active investor in tech startups in Israel and the United States as a managing partner at BRM Group, occasionally lecturing on technology topics. He holds dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship, is of Jewish ethnicity, resides primarily in the United States while maintaining strong ties to Israel's startup ecosystem, and exemplifies the intersection of Israeli innovation and American venture capital.