Israeli cloud security company Wiz has announced the completion of a $1 billion financing round at a company valuation of $12 billion. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $1.9 billion.
The latest round is led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive Capital, with participation from Greylock, Wellington Management, and existing investors Cyberstarts, Greenoaks, Howard Schultz, Index Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.
This is the biggest ever financing round completed by an Israeli privately-held tech company, beating and nearly doubling the previous highest round, when Transmit Security raised $543 million in 2021.
The financing round follows the acquisition of Israeli cloud detection and response company Gem Security for $350 million in March. The acquisition has enabled Wiz to expand its cloud native application protection platform.
Market sources says that Wiz is planning to hold an IPO on Wall Street within two years. The company, which reached annual revenue of $100 million within 18 months of launching its product - an industry record - has an ambitious target of $1 billion annual revenue in the coming years.
Having acquired Gem Security and Israeli cloud platform Raftt in December 2023, Wiz says it will use the latest funding to help drive future M&A efforts, along with talent recruitment and product development.
Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport said, "We will never stop innovating on behalf of our customers. Wiz has worked to earn the love of security and development teams; as we bolster our CDR capabilities, SOC teams are also part of that equation. This funding round will help us continue to solve customers’ complex cloud security challenges in an elegant, simple manner while supporting their broader vendor consolidation efforts."
Sarah Wang of Andreessen Horowitz said, "Wiz is a cloud security pioneer and has demonstrated remarkable agility, adaptability, and a keen understanding of market dynamics. This has enabled smart growth and positioned them as a power player in the cybersecurity space."
Wiz, which was founded in 2020 by Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Roy Reznik, and Yinon Costica, has 900 employees in Israel, the US, Europe and Asia and plans to hire over 400 new employees this year, some of them in Israel.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 7, 2024.
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