2024-07-24 17:40:02
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Wiz walked away from a blockbuster acquisition offer from Google in favor of chasing an IPO
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Analysts said the decision could be due to its multi-cloud product positioning or regulatory concerns
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Wiz’s investors are likely to keep the company chugging along as it pursues its dream, analysts said
“Bold.” “Interesting.” “Smart.” Those are some of the words analysts used to describe a decision from Wiz to forego a monster $23 billion acquisition bid from Google in favor of chasing its IPO dreams.
The offer from Google represented significant upside for the company, which was valued at $12 billion as part of a $1 billion funding round in May. In February, Wiz announced it had hit $350 million in annual recurring revenue and CEO Assaf Rappaport indicated the company had its sights set on going public.
Wiz did not respond to a request for comment. But in a memo to staff which was published by TechCrunch, Rappaport said while Google’s offer was “humbling” but insisted it would stay the course.
“Let me cut to the chase: our next milestones are $1 billion in ARR and an IPO,” he wrote. “The market validation we have experienced following this news only reinforces our goal — creating a platform that both security and development teams love.”
While Rappaport didn’t elaborate on the reasons for rejecting Google in his note, next Curve founder Leonard Lee told Fierce it could have had something to do with the way Wiz positions its product.
“Given the nature of Wiz’s products, which enable enterprises to secure their portfolio of multi-cloud and DevSecOps pipeline builder and manager, I would assume that Wiz wanted to maintain their CSP-agnostic/neutral position given that is a key to its product position,” he said. Still, the rejection was a “bold” move.
Lee continued “It also seems that Wiz leadership recognizes the growing opportunity to counter the rapidly growing cybercriminal economy and the growing range of risks and threats to enterprise and consumer security, privacy, and trust. In some way, their perception of their market opportunity transcends lofty offers from the likes of Alphabet.”
AvidThink founder Roy Chua added that Wiz could simply have decided it wasn’t worth it to spill the beans on its internal secrets during the due diligence process if it thought regulators might end up tanking the deal.
Moor Insights and Strategy’s Will Townsend added “Cloud security is hot and Wiz management may have thought that longer term there was more value in an IPO vs a sale.”
Fair enough. But how big a risk is Wiz taking chasing a public debut?
According to data from Statista, the number of IPOs continued to fall in 2023, dipping to just 154 from 480 in 2020 and a high of over 1,000 in 2021. Even before the Covid-era boom, IPOs in 2017-2019 numbered well over 200 each year.
Despite the recent slump, Chua told Fierce that “the overall sentiment is that the IPO market is open again.”
Chua added that given current market focus on cybersecurity “a company like Wiz could benefit from potentially frothy valuations.”
And in the meantime, Chua said Wiz’s big-name backers – which include the likes of Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Advent International – “can keep them going through the whole IPO process.” Indeed, a recent blog post from Andreessen Horowitz shows just how enamored investors seem to be with Wiz.
“As a relatively young company (just over 4 years old) with phenomenal growth in ARR, Wiz is in a strong negotiating position and the management and investors likely believe they can keep up the momentum,” Chua concluded.
