Salesforce Ventures is thrilled to celebrate a monumental milestone: Alphabet’s acquisition of Wiz has officially closed. At an aggregate valuation of $32 billion, this marks one of the largest technology acquisitions in history and one of the most significant exit outcomes in Salesforce Ventures’ history.
We’ve been proud partners to Wiz since May 2021, when we first made a significant investment in their Series B. Over the past four years, we continued to back the company through their Series C, D, and E rounds. Today’s close validates our conviction in backing category-defining enterprise technology companies early and supporting them throughout their journey.
Betting on the Team
From left to right: Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica, and Roy Reznik.
When we first met Assaf Rappaport and Ami Luttwak in 2021, they were building something ambitious: an agentless cloud security platform that would redefine how enterprises protect their infrastructure. It wasn’t obvious at the time. The cloud security market was crowded with well-funded competitors and established incumbents. Ultimately, what set Wiz apart was the team.
Assaf, Ami, Roy Reznik, and Yinon Costica brought rare, proven DNA. After serving in Israel’s elite Unit 8200, they built and sold Adallom to Microsoft for several hundred million dollars within three years. They then scaled Azure Cloud Security to over $1 billion in revenue inside Microsoft. They had experience with cloud security on both sides — as a vendor and as a cloud provider — giving them a unique understanding of the problem.
The feedback we heard during diligence was unlike anything we’d encountered before. The team’s credibility in the industry was so strong that Fortune 100 CISOs told us they’d buy from Wiz sight unseen. Former employees of Assaf said they’d work for him again without even asking what the job was.
This was 2021, a white-hot year for venture capital. Deals were closing in days. Assaf took a different approach. Even as the round moved fast, he told us he didn’t care about timing, just about the people joining Wiz on this journey. He said we should feel free to ask for any data or ask any questions, and they would answer everything. His philosophy: no one should join without knowing what they’re getting into.
The Wiz team was wildly ambitious and aggressive in execution. But low ego, down-to-earth, and composed as human beings. It was true N-of-1 behavior.
Product Velocity Like We’ve Never Seen
Wiz didn’t just have a great team. They executed at a pace that redefined what’s possible in the enterprise.
Within one year of incorporation, Wiz had a full-fledged enterprise-grade product. Within 15 months, they were selling seven-figure contracts to Fortune 500 companies. When our investment in Wiz closed in May of 2021, the company was doing under $5M in ARR. Their plan was to 4x by the end of the year. Instead, they more than 20x’d.
Wiz would go on to become the fastest cybersecurity company ever to reach $100 million in ARR — and then the fastest to $200 million, a pace of growth unheard of in cybersecurity. They beat every expectation we had from day one.
What made this possible? Wiz established key innovations that changed the game: agentless architecture, graph-based tools, and cloud security posture management. Their API-based platform provided unmatched visibility and protection across multi-cloud environments. Their research team became second to none, publishing critical vulnerabilities regularly and educating the market. This research focus became a true differentiator that compounded over time, flowing through the product and building unmatched trust with CISOs.
The feedback we heard from CISOs in our network was incredibly strong: Wiz identified more risks, provided richer and more granular data, and moved faster than the competition.
Further, Wiz entered the market at the perfect time. COVID accelerated cloud migrations far beyond analyst predictions. Wiz launched with an agentless approach at the exact moment when the cloud market was exploding and customers didn’t trust agents. The product could be deployed in hours and deliver value in days. That unlock enabled them to become a clear leader.
As Wiz expanded internationally from its headquarters in Israel, our team’s tailored introductions helped Wiz break into several large U.S. enterprises. It was the exact type of partnership we aim to provide: not just capital, but also access, credibility, and strategic support.
Why Wiz Matters
This acquisition is significant not just for Wiz, but for the entire cybersecurity industry. The increasing complexity of cloud environments — accelerated by the rise of generative AI — demands next-generation security solutions. Wiz’s success is a testament to the importance of innovation in this space, and Alphabet’s acquisition validates the immense value of modern, scalable cloud security platforms.
The use of cloud technology continues to grow every year, and we’re seeing a huge step-function jump in cloud resources driven by AI workloads. Wiz is uniquely positioned to expand into cloud and AI security with solutions such as its recently launched AI Security Posture Management module.
Congratulations to Assaf, Ami, Roy, Yinon, and the entire Wiz team on this remarkable achievement. You built something extraordinary: a company defined by trust, transparency, and relentless customer focus. You attracted top talent from around the world and built one of the most respected teams in cybersecurity history.
Wiz’s journey is an extremely rare instance of the right people building the right product in the right market at the right time. When that happens, a team can achieve outlier results. We’re grateful to have been part of Wiz’s journey from the earliest days. This outcome is a testament to what happens when exceptional founders meet a massive market opportunity and execute with precision and speed.
