Wiz, a cybersecurity startup that previously rejected an acquisition offer from Google's parent company Alphabet, recently announced the acquisition of another cybersecurity startup, Dazz, thereby strengthening its cybersecurity risk response capabilities.
Wiz did not disclose the amount involved in the transaction, but it is likely around $450 million.
Founded in January 2020 and headquartered in New York, Wiz was co-founded by Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak, with Assaf Rappaport serving as CEO. Its business primarily helps enterprises ensure the security of their cloud services. Major clients include Salesforce, BMW, and the US food processor Mars, with annual recurring revenue of approximately $350 million.
Prior to this, Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport also founded Adallom, a cloud security company in Menlo Park, California, which helps enterprises ensure the security of their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) operations and provides services such as real-time monitoring of user activity to ensure the security of enterprise digital assets.
After founding Wiz, the company received $1 billion in funding this year from venture capitalists such as a16z, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive Capital, bringing its market value to $12 billion. This year, Wiz further expanded its cloud security technology through the acquisition of Gem Security, a cloud detection and response provider.
Dazz, acquired by Wiz, was founded in 2021 and also focuses on cybersecurity, offering a unified security mitigation platform called Dazz Remediation Cloud. It boasts the ability to quickly identify security blind spots, prioritize security issues, and streamline risk remediation workflows, reducing the time to security risk exposure from weeks to hours.
Furthermore, Dazz co-founder and CEO Merav Bahat and Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport are old acquaintances. Bahat was a Microsoft employee, while Rappaport joined after Adallom was acquired by Microsoft in 2015. Both have invested in each other's companies and share several common investors.
In addition to acquiring Dazz, Wiz previously acquired developer tools provider Raftt at the end of 2023 and acquired cloud threat detection technology provider Gem Security for $350 million in March of this year, but rejected Alphabet's $23 billion acquisition offer.
