Wiz (cloud security company)

Wiz was founded in January 2020 by the former leads of Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group and the founding team of Adallom: Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica and Roy Reznik. The four had worked together for more than 15 years; Adallom, a cloud access security broker (CASB) company, was acquired by MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft is a technology company founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, with businesses spanning Windows, Microsoft 365, Azure, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, gaming and devices.Open the full entry in 2015 for $320 million.⁠[1]

Looking back in 2024, Rappaport wrote that “my fellow co-founders and I left Microsoft with a conviction that cloud security needed to be reinvented, unknowingly walking headfirst into a global pandemic.”⁠[2]

On December 9, 2020, Wiz emerged from stealth with $100 million in Series A financing from Index VenturesIndex VenturesIndex Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in Geneva in 1996. It invests from seed through growth and operates across London, San Francisco and New York, supporting technology companies through a transatlantic network.Open the full entry, Sequoia, Insight Partners and Cyberstarts, nine months after the founding team wrote its first line of code, the company said. Doug LeoneDoug LeoneDoug Leone is an Italian-born American venture capitalist and partner at Sequoia Capital who was long involved in managing the firm and developing its international business. He began his career in technology sales, joined Sequoia in 1988, and was involved in the development of companies such as Meraki, ServiceNow, and Nubank. In 2026, he continued to focus on AI and enterprise software and serves as chairman of the board of Cresta.Open the full entry of Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry, Shardul Shah of Index Ventures, Jeff Horing of Insight Partners and Gili Raanan of Cyberstarts joined the Wiz board.⁠[1]

The company said its architecture scanned the entire cloud environment, across all compute types and cloud services, for vulnerabilities, configuration, network and identity issues without agents or sidecars, and that the product was already used by paying customers including Fortune 100 companies. The release was datelined Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel.⁠[1]

On February 27, 2023, Wiz announced it had raised $300 million at a $10 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture PartnersLightspeed Venture PartnersLightspeed Venture Partners backs companies from seed through late-stage financing. Its website distinguishes Lightspeed Management Company (LSVP) from Lightspeed India Partners (LSIP): the two are separately operated investment advisers, with the U.S., European, and Israeli offices belonging to LSVP and the India and Southeast Asia offices belonging to LSIP.Open the full entry and existing investors Greenoaks and Index Ventures; Wiz said this made it the world’s largest cybersecurity unicorn and the fastest SaaS company to reach a $10 billion valuation. Angel investors in the round included StarbucksStarbucksStarbucks is a publicly traded coffee company headquartered in Seattle, founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. Howard Schultz subsequently developed its coffeehouse model and international expansion. It operates company-owned and licensed coffeehouses and sells packaged coffee through partners. Its shares trade on Nasdaq under SBUX.Open the full entry’ Howard Schultz and French businessman Bernard Arnault, bringing total funding to about $900 million.⁠[3][4]

Wiz said at the time that its customers included more than 35 percent of the Fortune 100, among them BMW, Colgate-PalmoliveColgate-PalmoliveColgate-Palmolive Company is a New York–based American consumer products company in oral, personal and home care and pet nutrition.Open the full entry, Chipotle, Fox, LVMH, Morgan StanleyMorgan StanleyMorgan Stanley is an American global financial services firm that grew from an investment banking partnership into a publicly traded financial group spanning investment banking, securities trading, wealth management, and investment management.Open the full entry, Mars, SalesforceSalesforceSalesforce is a U.S. enterprise software company headquartered in San Francisco, providing cloud applications, data platforms and AI agent tools centered on customer relationship management (CRM).Open the full entry, Snowflake and Slack. During 2022 the company expanded its platform from cloud security posture management (CSPM) and cloud-native application protection (CNAPP) into container and Kubernetes security, data security posture management (DSPM), external attack surface management (EASM) and cloud detection and response (CDR).⁠[3]

Wiz scans cloud workloads through an agentless, API-based approach and uses a “Security Graph” that correlates information across network, identity, secrets and workloads to identify attack paths.⁠[4][3]

On April 10, 2024, Wiz announced the acquisition of Gem Security to strengthen its cloud detection and response (CDR) capabilities and expand into security operations. In the announcement Rappaport wrote: “It is the year of security consolidation, and that is our path forward.”⁠[2]

On May 7, 2024, Wiz announced it had raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation, led by Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Thrive CapitalThrive CapitalThrive Capital is an investment firm led by chief executive Joshua Kushner that builds and invests in internet, software and technology-enabled companies, with investments including Cursor and Chai Discovery. Kushner is also chief executive of Thrive Holdings, a long-term holding company.Open the full entry. Rappaport said the capital would go to talent acquisition and product expansion as well as strategic acquisitions.⁠[5]

In 2024 Google offered to buy Wiz for $23 billion, and Wiz decided to forgo the deal. Rappaport wrote to employees: “Although we are flattered by the offers we received, we chose to continue our path to building Wiz,” and said the goal was to reach $1 billion in annual revenue.⁠[6]

On March 18, 2025, Google announced a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz, Inc., a cloud security platform headquartered in New York, for $32 billion in an all-cash transaction, subject to closing adjustments; once closed, Wiz would join Google Cloud. Google said Wiz’s products would continue to work across major clouds including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, and that the deal was subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals.⁠[7]

The deal was the largest exit in Israel’s history and the largest acquisition in Google’s history, more than double the previous Israeli record, the $15 billion sale of Mobileye.⁠[8]

At the time of the announcement Wiz employed about 1,200 people in Israel and the United States; each of the four founders held about 10 percent of the shares, with Rappaport as CEO, Costica as chief product officer, Luttwak as chief technology officer and Reznik as chief development officer.⁠[6]

On March 11, 2026, Google announced that it had completed its acquisition of Wiz. Wiz joined Google Cloud and kept its brand, and its products continued to work across major clouds including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, offered through a range of partner security solutions.⁠[9]

On the day of closing Rappaport said: “Joining Google Cloud allows us to scale our mission of protecting customers wherever they operate – at machine speed.” Google Cloud CEO Thomas KurianThomas KurianThomas Kurian is the chief executive officer of Google Cloud, Google’s cloud computing division. He previously led product development at Oracle for many years, and in 2018 moved to Google, succeeding Diane Greene as head of Google Cloud; during his tenure he has led several large acquisitions and steered the division toward enterprise products built around Gemini models and AI agents.Open the full entry said: “We want to make security a catalyst for innovation, not a barrier.”⁠[9]

Wiz’s website labels the company “Now part of Google Cloud” and lists the products Wiz Code, Wiz Cloud and Wiz Defend. The company says its platform creates a normalizing layer between cloud environments so organizations can identify and remove critical risks, and lists 65 percent of the Fortune 100 as customers and 5 million cloud workloads protected.⁠[10]

The leadership section of the website lists Assaf Rappaport (CEO), Ami Luttwak (CTO), Yinon Costica (VP Product), Roy Reznik (VP R&D), Adi Leist Sharon (Chief Business Officer) and Anthony Belfiore (Chief Operating Officer), among others.⁠[10]

Companies acquired by Wiz also include the cloud security company Dazz, whose co-founder Meirav Bahat had served as Rappaport’s deputy at Microsoft’s research and development center in Israel.⁠[11]

Wiz: Official website: https://www.wiz.io/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

X: Public account: https://x.com/wiz_io (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wizsecurity (opens in a new window).⁠[10]