U.S.-Israeli startup Wiz raised $1 billion in a private funding round that values the four-year-old cloud cyber security company at $12 billion, as it seeks to do more acquisitions.
Wiz, which has raised $1.9 billion since its founding in 2020, said in a statement on Tuesday that it plans to use the finds for future merger & acquisition efforts, talent recruitment and product development. Wiz’s new valuation is a 20% increase over the company’s latest fundraising round last year.
The company said it expects 2024 to be a year of consolidation within the security market.
“We believe that in the next at least 12 to 18 months there will be many opportunities in the cybersecurity market and specifically in cloud security,” chief executive and co-founder Assaf Rappaport told Reuters.
He said Wiz was looking to add new capabilities internally and through acquisition, with founders looking for exits, investors eager to show returns and customers wanting to see more innovation in security platforms.
The company has already been an active buyer. Last month, Wiz – which secures items that organisations build and run in the cloud – bought Gem Security for a reported $350 million and purchased Raftt in late 2023.
Wiz, Rappaport said, was setting its sights on an eventual initial public offering (IPO) in the United States but a share offering was not imminent.
“Eventually, our goal is to become a public company,” he said. But there is “no pressure to go public and no need to raise more funds. So, we can time our IPO when we feel ready and when the markets are ready.”
Rappaport said they plan to stay private for another year or two.
Wiz had $350 million in revenue in 2023 and said it works with 40% of Fortune 100 companies.
“This funding round will help us continue to solve customers’ complex cloud security challenges,” Rappaport said.
The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive Capital, with participation from Greylock, Wellington Management, as well as existing investors Cyberstarts, Greenoaks, Howard Schultz, Index Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.
Wiz, headquartered in New York with its research and development in Tel Aviv, last raised $300 million in early 2023 in a round that had valued the company at $10 billion. At the time, it was one of a handful of tech firms which opted to not transfer funds to Israel due to uncertainty about the country’s judicial system.
Source: Mint