Gem Security team. company pic by Adi Lam)
Gem Security, an Israeli cybersecurity startup founded by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces’ vaunted 8200 cyber intelligence unit, was acquired by fellow Israeli startup Wiz, an Israeli unicorn that offers an API security platform, for $350 million.
Wiz was founded in March 2020 by the team that led Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group and built the security stack in Azure. CEO Assaf Rappaport, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP Product Yinon Costica, and VP R&D Roy Reznik, have worked together for more than 15 years and previously founded Adallom (acquired by Microsoft for $320 million), which is now the #1 Cloud Access Security Broker in the market.
Wiz became a super unicorn and the world’s biggest cybersecurity startup when it hit a $10 billion valuation in January. The valuation came with a $300 million raise in a Series D funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and existing investors Greenoaks Capital Partners and Index Ventures. Wiz also became the fastest SaaS company to achieve a $10 billion valuation.
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Founded in 2022 by CEO Arie Zilberstein, CTO Ron Konigsberg and VP of Product Ofir Brukner, Gem boasts that the company delivers a centralized approach to tackle cloud native threats, from incident readiness, through real-time threat detection, investigation and response at the speed of cloud. The company today has just 20 employees, but hopes to use some of the new funds to double in size.
Gem’s founders are all security industry veterans, having spent years in the trenches responding to large-scale breaches in the cloud. They previously held key roles in elite Israeli Intelligence Corps Unit 8200 as well as Sygnia, an Incident Response and cybersecurity company working with global top tier organizations.
“This is an exciting time for Wiz,” said the company. “Although we cannot talk about specific moves until they are officially completed, the company is at a unique point in time in examining mergers and acquisitions that will expand the value offered by our technology to customers. With $900 million in cash and $350 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) and more than 40% of Fortune 1000 companies as customers, Wiz stands out as a major player in the global cybersecurity industry.”
