Cyber unicorn Wiz makes first acquisition with purchase of Israeli startup Raftt
Cyber unicorn Wiz makes first acquisition with purchase of Israeli startup Raftt
The value of the deal was not disclosed, but it is estimated that Wiz paid tens of millions of dollars for Raftt, which has developed a cloud-based platform for creating and sharing development environments
Cybersecurity unicorn Wiz is making its first acquisition since its establishment about four years ago, acquiring Israeli startup Raftt, which has developed a cloud-based platform for creating and sharing development environments. While the value of the deal was not disclosed, it is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Established in 2020, Raftt raised $5 million led by Aleph VC and Cardumen Capital. A number of private investors from the industry participated in the round, including serial entrepreneurs Ariel Maislos and Benny Schneider, devtools angel investors, Adi Sharabani, founder of Skycure and currently at Snyk, and Ariel Asraf, CEO of Coralogix.
Focusing on the development process, Raftt provides developer environments which run in the cloud, enabling collaboration while using existing local IDEs and other tools and workflows. With this tool, developers can eliminate setup and drift between environments and create unlimited environments for every need.
Raftt was founded by Roy Iarchy, who serves as CEO, and Gahl Saraf, CTO – both experienced senior developers who served in the Intelligence Corps of the IDF. Iarchy was the R&D Group Manager at Skycure, which was acquired by Symantec, and Saraf served as a tech lead and architect at Meta and led the development of the Facebook Lite application.
Between 10-20 Raftt employees are expected to join Wiz's research and development teams in Israel.
According to Wiz, which raised $300 million in a Series D funding round at a $10 billion valuation earlier this year, its annual recurring revenue (ARR) has already reached over $250 million.
"Our goal is to absorb all the Raftt employees," Wiz co-founder and CTO Ami Luttwak told Calcalist. "This is a very challenging time to combine work and acquisitions. I have four children at home and a wife who is a volunteer doctor on the Gaza border, but we have to keep moving forward despite the war.”
Referring to the purchase, Luttwak said, "The company has developed advanced technology for developers, and there is a highly knowledgeable and strong team here. The connection between the security world and the cloud, along with the developers' experience, represents the most significant challenge in the security realm. Anyone who brings a solution allowing developers to address security needs during development is considered the holy grail of the cyber world. The goal is to swiftly integrate the capabilities of the acquired company with ours, and we are gaining a highly skilled team. Within a few months, we will release a new product that has not been seen on the market.
"We have more than 850 employees, with over half located outside Israel, and we have dozens of open positions in Israel and internationally. Thanks to our large team outside Israel, the company continues its operations, prioritizing business continuity, providing excellent service to customers, and experiencing growth," concluded Luttwak.
"The offer to be part of Wiz is an opportunity we couldn't pass up," said Roy Iarchy, CEO of Raftt. “When we founded Rafft, we built a solution for the developer community and now we are excited to enter the cyber field, and join a company that is changing the face of cloud security."
