Barak Schoster

Barak, a former entrepreneur and operator who co-founded and served as CTO of Bridgecrew, an open-source cybersecurity startup, is a venture partner in Battery’s Tel Aviv office. Barak is a specialist in building open-source companies and those with a product-led growth (PLG) business model.

At Battery, Barak works with the firm’s global team and seeks out companies with worldwide reach in areas including cybersecurity, open-source software, DevOps, cloud infrastructure and data/machine learning. His company Bridgecrew, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2021, popularized the open-source Checkov tool.

Prior to joining Battery, Barak was a senior director and chief architect at Palo Alto Networks leading developer advocacy; open-source, PLG initiatives; and architecture efforts related to DevSecOps inside the company’s Prisma Cloud business, of which Bridgecrew is a part.

Earlier in his career, he worked as a software architect and data engineer at startup Fortscale, which was acquired by RSA Security. Prior to that, Barak was as an engineering team leader focused on big data and machine learning in the Israel Defense Forces.

Barak holds a BS degree in computer science from the College of Management Academic Studies and an MBA in information technology from Bar-Ilan University. Both institutions are in Israel.