$1.7 billion cybersecurity firm Wiz, the fastest-growing tech startup, brought in a fresh $120 million investment thanks to the world's richest person's VC firm

<p><img src="https://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5fdcfb87c910a400192e8663-1200/0005_NEL5138-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Assaf Rappaport, Wiz CEO" data-mce-source="Wiz" data-mce-caption="Assaf Rappaport, Wiz CEO"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>The world's fastest-growing startup just pulled in funding thanks to the world's wealthiest person.&nbsp;</p><p>The cloud cybersecurity company Wiz has picked up additional investment from Aglae Ventures, the venture firm backed by luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnaud.&nbsp;</p><p>This month, the Israeli startup closed $120 million in investment from Salesforce, Blackstone, and Algae. The deal is structured as an extension to the $130 million Series B funding round that the company announced in March, the company said.</p><p>The investment caps off a huge surge in the startup's value over a very short period of time: Founded in March 2020, Wiz joined the unicorn startup club with the Series B funding round announced a year later in March 2021. At that point, three months ago, Wiz said it was valued at $1.7 billionthough the company isn't saying if the new add-on investment was made at a different valuation.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Wiz gives companies one view of all its cloud servers, "a single pane of glass" in industry parlance. The single view was a staple of on-premises cybersecurity, but not available in cloud security before Wiz.</p><p>The add-on investment was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-25/salesforce-leads-120-million-round-in-israeli-cyber-startup-wiz">originally reported by Bloomberg</a>, and comes with other, previously unreported updates to its business: The startup is relocating to New York City from Tel Aviv, and now claims to have been adopted by 10% of the Fortune 500, in addition to the investment from Arnaud's firm.&nbsp;</p><p>Twice this month <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-bernard-arnault-richest-person-in-europe-lvmh-life-photos-2019-1">Arnaud, a French investor who made his billions in luxury goods</a>, surpassed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person.&nbsp;</p><p>The Aglae Ventures investment was meaningful to the startup. "If anyone knows how to spot world-class brands, it's Bernard Arnault," CEO Assaf Rappaport told Insider. Because of its great wealth, "Agla has a much longer timeline for investments, so their standards are very high."</p><p>Miyuki Matsumoto of Agla Ventures told Insider "we set a high bar" for investments, and the VC spends "a lot of time focusing on founders and the team." She said the Wiz team has an unusual "blend of technical and commercial expertise."</p><p>Vishal Amin, a managing director in Blackstone Growth, said his VC firm was impressed by Wiz's "company trajectory at this stage of its life cycle," but that's not what really sold Blackstone. "We were a customer. We would say, 'hey, we'd like to see this,' and they would say, 'It's on the roadmap.' But they would actually ship it on time. They would deploy iy when they said they would. In tech, that's an amazing thing to see."&nbsp;</p><p>Wiz <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/orca-wiz-cybersecurity-funding-rounds-cloud-scanning-2021-3">has grown so fast </a>that it has never had so much as an investor pitch deck. But Wiz's path actually began years ago, when the cofounders became friends in the Israeli Defense Force. Later the cofounders started Adallom, a cybersecurity startup acquired by Microsoft for $320 million in 2015.&nbsp;</p><p><img src="https://static2.businessinsider.com/image/60c123cab50ed500185e3f30-2400/Image from iOS.jpg" border="0" alt="Wiz pride photo" data-mce-source="Wiz" data-mce-caption="For Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport, center, Pride is important. Of the four Wiz founders, two of us are gay, he says."></p><p>Rappaport believes Wiz is different in another way that is especially relevant during Pride month. "Of the four Wiz founders, two of us are gay," he said. "So we don't fit the stereotype of cyber startups. We care a lot about creating the best, most empowering workplace for employees of all backgrounds."</p><p>Rappaport has spoken out for LGBTQ rights for years. In 2018 when the Israeli government passed a discriminatory surrogacy law that denied the LGBT community the same rights to have a family, he <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-surrogacy-protest-20180723-story.html">spoke out</a> against it and helped Microsoft draft a policy providing a stipend to any employee wanting to start a family via surrogacy.</p><p>Rappaport and the company headquarters will be moving to New York from Israel later this year.&nbsp;</p><p>Wiz has been adopted by 10% of the Fortune 500, the company says, another milestone that makes it the fastest-growing cybersecurity company ever. Customers include MassMutual and DocuSign.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wiz-arnaud-startup-billion-round-rappaport-fastest-growing-cybersecurity-2021-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tick-bite-can-make-you-allergic-red-meat-2018-8">One bite from this tick could ruin red meat for youor even kill you</a></p>
Click here to read full news..