Israeli cloud security startup, Wiz, led by Assaf Rappaport, announced the closing of a $250 million funding round at a $6 billion valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners and Green Oaks. Past investors include CRM giant Salesforce, Cyberstarter, Bernard Arnault, and the Starbucks guy, Howard Shultz. This marks Wiz’s second mega-round in less than 6 months.
Can't stop
Wiz develops a cloud based cyber system that enables enterprises complete visibility over their cloud environments, helping them detect vulnerabilities and configuration and identification issues. This equips security leaders (CISO) with a complete map of all cloud risks under one dashboard.
Wiz was founded by the same group of entrepreneurs which founded Adallom, an Israeli startup acquired by Microsoft for $320 million. After being swallowed up by Microsoft’s cyber operations, Rappaport slowly moved up the chain of command, until he found himself leading Microsoft’s entire Israel-based R&D. In a special interview with Geektime, Rappaport said that once he saw that the Israeli R&D was standing on its own and success wasn’t momentary, “I started thinking it was time to leave. Once it’s in your head, then it’s time to go.”
Two months after leaving Microsoft, the Adallom team announced the founding of Beyond (later changed to Wiz) and a $21 million funding round. In less than a year, the startup announced an unusual funding round for such a young company, when Wiz scored $100 million. “Records may have been broken here. We’ve grown quickly both in customers and in revenue,” Rappaport noted to Geektime.
Assaf Rapaport said that “It is amazing how exciting the last year and a half have been in terms of business despite the pandemic. When I look back at all the concerns we had in March 2020, when we founded Wiz, I realize today how much our ability to adapt quickly to a changing reality is what makes us grow at a tremendous pace and become a truly global company. But leave the numbers for a moment -- the achievement I am most proud of is the team we’ve built - in the end this is the key to our success. "
