Israeli Startup Wiz Adds $120M To Series B Round Led By Salesforce

US-Israeli cloud security company Wiz, the startup co-founded by the former general manager of R&D at Microsoft Israel Assaf Rappaport, has added $120 million to its Series B funding round from investors such as Salesforce and Blackstone Group. This brings the total amount raised by the Tel Aviv-based firm to $350 million since its founding in early 2020, Wiz Chief Executive Office Assaf Rappaport said in an email on Wednesday

Existing investors include Greenoaks Capital, Advent International, Sequoia, and Insight Partners.

The funding will be the company’s third infusion of capital in the past six months. It will come just two months after the firm was valued at a $1.7 billion valuation following the first part of their Series B round, a $130 million investment led by private equity investor Advent International.

Wiz is designed to make the cloud work for security teams. The fast-growing firm helps companies secure their cloud infrastructure at scale through a contextual risk assessment and clear action plan. Rappaport founded the company in January 2020 with Yinon Costica, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik, the same team that founded the firm Adallom and Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group. Adallom was sold to Microsoft for $320 million in September 2015. The company emerged from stealth in December 2020 with a $100 million Series A funding round. Wiz has 82 employees compared to just 19 a year ago, CRN reported, citing LinkedIn.

“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,” Rappaport said in December. “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.”