Wiz Emerges from Stealth with $100 Million Series A Financing and a Mission to Reinvent Cloud Security
New financing from Index Ventures, Sequoia and Insight Partners comes just nine months after the first line of code; Wiz's cloud security platform already in use at Fortune 100 customers at scale
PALO ALTO, Calif. and TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 9, 2020 /CNW/ -- Wiz, a fast-growing cloud security innovator, today emerged from stealth with $100 million in Series A financing from Index Ventures, Sequoia, Insight Partners and Cyberstarts. The new financing, just nine months after the Wiz founding team wrote its first line of code, will help the company scale to meet customer demand for cloud security solutions that provide complete risk visibility and are simple to deploy at scale. Doug Leone, global managing partner at Sequoia Capital, Shardul Shah, partner at Index Ventures, Jeff Horing, managing director at Insight Partners, and Gili Raanan of Cyberstarts will be joining the Wiz team as board members.
"When our founding team was leading the Microsoft Cloud Security Group, we saw firsthand how security teams struggled with the complexity of existing approaches to securing the cloud," said Assaf Rappaport, CEO and co-founder of Wiz. "We knew that by embracing a cloud-native approach, we could make a product that is simple to deploy and scale, allowing security teams to focus on real risks. We're excited to partner with such an experienced and well-respected team of investors again as we look to accelerate our growth in 2021, and meet the market demand for an elegant cloud security platform that works."
Cloud security is broken. Today's cloud security suites are complex, fragmented and generate too many alerts for security teams. Having spoken with hundreds of CISOs to validate the need, Wiz designed its product from the ground up to provide unmatched visibility and risk insights to allow security professionals to focus on things that matter most. Wiz's unique architecture allows for seamless scanning of the entire cloud environment across all compute types and cloud services for vulnerabilities, configuration, network, and identity issues without agents or sidecars.
"My team couldn't believe how easy it was to get Wiz up and running," said Emily Heath, Chief Trust and Security Officer at Docusign. "The instant, out-of-the box visibility and value it provides make one of the best security tools I've seen in a long time."
"The Wiz founding team is among the most customer-obsessed groups of founders I've worked with and it shows in the product they've brought to market," said Shardul Shah, partner at Index Ventures. "2020 has accelerated cloud adoption, and security teams have to coordinate with the rest of the business in a new digitally transformed reality. Wiz is the solution that these organizations need to not only secure the investments they've made, but to get security teams out in front where they can enable engineering and lines of business to innovate even faster."
Wiz was founded in January 2020 by the former leads of Microsoft's Cloud Security Group and the founding team of Adallom, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 for $320 million. The team of Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica and Roy Reznik have worked together for more than 15 years, including at Adallom where they built a fast-growing leader in the cloud access broker security (CASB) space. The team's experience working with customers as a cloud platform vendor at Microsoft, combined with their past experience as entrepreneurs, has helped them build a cloud-native security product already used by paying customers, including Fortune 100 companies.
"When we first met the Wiz founding team in 2012 during the early days of Adallom, it was clear they were a passionate group with a deep understanding of the security space ," said Doug Leone, global managing partner at Sequoia Capital. "Eight years later, the team has only gotten stronger with the founding of Wiz. Their past experiences executing at scale and their hunger to build an enduring company will help Wiz lead the market with a new generation of cloud security tools. We're thrilled to partner again with this exceptional founding team."
"We're excited to work with Wiz because the team not only understands how to build great products but they also know how to build a successful team and company," said Jeff Horing, managing partner, Insight Partners. "Customer feedback has unanimously highlighted the benefit Wiz's powerful data mining and audit software brings the global business ecosystem, and after only nine months they're already in a place to redefine the Cloud Security market."
About Wiz
Wiz is a fast-growing cloud security innovator that helps companies secure their cloud infrastructure at scale. Founded by the same team that founded Adallom and led Microsoft's Cloud Security Group, Wiz provides security teams with the simplicity, visibility and risk insights they need to stay one step ahead of their business. Based in Palo Alto, Calif. And Tel Aviv, Israel, Wiz is backed by Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Insight Partners and Cyberstarts. For more information, visit www.wiz.io.
Media Contact:
Cathy Corwin
Inkhouse for Wiz
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SOURCE Wiz
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