Israeli Cloud Security Firm Wiz Raises $120 Million In Add’l Funding

Cyberattacks are the greatest threat to the world’s financial system, the head of the Federal Reserve Board said last month. Investors and cybersecurity industry experts seem to agree with that theory.

For its part, Salesforce contributed to Israeli startup Wiz‘s Series B round with $120 million in funding, Bloomberg reported. The cybersecurity company’s software helps such clients as DocuSign and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. find potential risks in cloud-based systems.

Bloomberg cited an anonymous source speaking about the funding, which remains a private matter. Representatives for Salesforce and Wiz declined to comment.

Wiz’s website urges potential customers to “take control of your cloud infrastructure security.” The company says its products “reveal actionable insights about high-risk attack vectors in your cloud so you can prioritize and fix them.”

The Tel Aviv-based Wiz has taken off in terms of pulling in funding. Since its founding in early 2020, the startup has raised some $230 million prior to this extension. Bloomberg said the last such round valued the company at $1.7 billion. Existing investors include Greenoaks Capital, Advent International, Insight Partners and Sequoia.

Demand for cybersecurity for cloud-based services has been growing. According to Bloomberg, global cloud management and security spending is forecast to jump to $20 billion next year, according to a Gartner Inc. report from November.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in an interview on April 11 with CBS News that the risks posed by cybercriminals are greater than the lending and liquidity troubles that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. “There are scenarios in which a large financial institution would lose the ability to track the payments that it’s making, where you would have a part of the financial system come to a halt, or perhaps even a broad part,” he said. “And so, we spend so much time and energy and money guarding against these things.” By comparison, Powell said, the chance of a breakdown similar to the great financial debacle of 2008 is “very low.”