LinkedIn Ranking Puts Private Israeli Tech in Focus

LinkedIn named identity security firm Oak the top Israeli startup in its 2026 ranking, which weighs employee growth, attention, job interest and the ability to attract talent. The ranking highlights companies competing for workers and visibility; it doesn't measure their effects on people beyond their company pages.

Oak launched publicly in July with a $60 million seed investment led by Greylock Partners, Accel and CRV. Shai Morag, who founded two cybersecurity companies later acquired by Palo Alto Networks and Tenable, co-founded Oak with Tal Marom. Private firms and their investors take center stage on the list, while LinkedIn’s platform supplies the measures of growth and attention.

What LinkedIn Counts

“Our annual LinkedIn Top Startups list surfaces the 15 emerging Israeli companies growing fast, gaining attention and recruiting top talent right now,” LinkedIn said in a statement. Its criteria spell out those priorities: the ranking drew on five sections of LinkedIn data—employee growth, engagement, job interest and attraction of top talent, with engagement measured through company-page views and follows by non-employees, as well as non-employees’ views of startup employees’ profiles.

Job interest came from views of and applications to advertised roles. Attraction of top talent meant a company’s ability to hire workers from LinkedIn’s global Top Companies lists. Those measures track activity on LinkedIn and hiring through its labor-market network, not working conditions or public benefit. Those subjects don’t appear among the ranking’s criteria.

To qualify, companies had to be no more than seven years old, privately held, fully independent and not owned by larger firms. They also needed at least 30 employees employed from July 2025 to June 2026. Startups that laid off 10% or more of their workforce between July 1, 2025, and publication of the list couldn’t qualify. The rules define which companies enter the competition. LinkedIn’s numbers decide who gets attention.

AI, Security and the Hiring Race

Three-year-old AI development firm doubleAI ranked second, AI operating-system developer Wonderful third, and Kela Technologies fourth as an open software platform and fifth as a business-to-business cybersecurity firm. The full ranking also included Cyera in private network security, Notch in AI automation, Mate Security in cybersecurity, Eon in cloud data protection, Port in workflow automation, Encore AI in AI data analysis, Limitless Labs in AI for precision manufacturing, Adaptive6 in spending control, Dream in AI cybersecurity and FINQ in AI fintech.

LinkedIn said it identified companies working on pioneering cybersecurity solutions, AI “expert intelligence” and workflow automation, using only LinkedIn data. The list presents these firms through a specific institutional lens: growth, online engagement, applications and recruitment. It doesn’t claim to rank them by any other measure.

LinkedIn published the ranking on Wednesday, October 14, 2026. For the companies named, visibility and access to talent are part of the story. The figures LinkedIn chose to publish show how it defines startup success—and what its own measuring apparatus leaves outside the frame.