Israeli Startup Wiz, Founded By Ex-Microsoft Israel Cloud Security Team, Raises $100M

US-Israeli cloud security company Wiz, the company co-founded by the former general manager of R&D at Microsoft Israel Assaf Rappaport, has raised $100 million in a Series A funding round, the company announced on Wednesday.

Venture capital firms like Index Ventures, Sequoia, Insight Partners, and Cyberstarts participated in the round.

The new funding round comes just nine months after the founding of the company in January 2020. 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 with Yinon Costica, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik, the same team that founded cloud security firm Adallom and Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group.

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.”

The company said the new funding 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.

“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.”

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.

“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 at 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.”