Kyle Cheung

Everyone knows @wiz_io broke a record reaching $100M ARR in 18 months. What everyone doesn’t know is that the team was using a clever hack - leveraging their Israeli time zone. They’d code all day, and then the engineers would get on the phone to make sales calls all night. Everything about Wiz changed fast in the early days - the idea, the product, the market. What never changed was the teamwork of @assaf_rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik & @amiluttwak - their clarity of vision, their ability to listen to customers and iterate, and the commitment to moving faster than anyone else could match. Founders: remember that in any technology cycle, in any market, a willingness to outwork everyone else is a superpower. Congrats to @wiz_io. Excited for your next chapter with @Google

BREAKING: Google Completes $32B Acquisition of Wiz $6M Seed → $32 Billion Exit First seed investor Gili Raanan (@giliraanan) of Cyberstarts explains how a $6M seed check became the largest cybersecurity exit ever — & what it’s like working with CEO Assaf Rappaport. Cyberstarts stats: - $1.5B+ AUM across 7 funds - Backed 30 companies - Portfolio represents over $61B in combined value (50% of the worldwide private cybersecurity companies market) - Backed at Seed: Wiz, Island, Fireblocks, Cyera, Transmit Security - 9 exits including Noname, Axis, Bionic, Dazz, Avalor This conversation took place in London February 12th, 2026. We cover: • Early days of @wiz_io & how the company evolved from seed to a $32B outcome • Why Wiz achieved such strong product market fit • What made Assaf (@assaf_rappaport) and the founding team special • How Cyberstarts picks founders before there is product or code • Why Gili believes AI could create the darkest decade in cybersecurity • What the next generation of $50B–$100B cyber companies could look like 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Gili Raanan, Founder Cyberstarts (01:05) From Sequoia to building a Cyber only venture fund (04:39) Building CAPTCHA and the first web application firewall at 27 (05:35) Growing up in a small Israeli town and discovering computers (09:15) Why he decided to focus only on cybersecurity (11:05) Investing in people, not ideas (12:45) The kind of founders he looks for (14:05) Why adversity creates better entrepreneurs (16:11) When a small fund delivers outsized returns (19:00) A portfolio with 50% of private cyber market value (20:12) Growing up introverted & learning to observe people (26:30) What makes a company truly important (30:48) Why do Israeli founders dominate cybersecurity? (31:05) Helping founders become the best version of themselves (37:06) Israeli culture, pressure, and resilience (41:25) Breaking the ceiling with companies like Wiz (43:24) Why limits exist mostly in our minds (46:15) Facing fears, Yoga and overcoming internal limits (47:32) The “Sunrise” method for finding PMF (51:55) Why building startups is an emotional journey (56:25) How cybersecurity ideas actually emerge (58:15) The dark decade of cybersecurity (01:06:45) Asimov’s laws of robotics and AI guardrails (01:09:55) The three biggest cybersecurity risks in 2026 (01:12:25) Inside the $32B Wiz deal (01:22:23) What makes Wiz co-founder Assaf exceptional (01:24:33) Surrounding yourself with great people (01:28:48) The biggest takeaways from his time at Sequoia: Doug Leone, Mike Moritz (01:32:05) What’s next for Cyberstarts?

Amazing how investors can forget the implications of investing at peak hype. Consider SaaS in 2020-2022. I took the @Wing_VC enterprise tech 30 from 2020, filtered down to the 23 companies that achieved unicorn valuations, tracked their peak valuation and compared to their most recently announced valuation. As far as I can tell (please correct if you see a mistake) only three have raised at up rounds from that peak: @figma, @VerkadaHQ and @databricks. The Nasdaq is up 42% from its 2021 peak. Many (most!) are still great companies- but human behaviors rhyme with history and hype blinds folks to both valuation and fundamentals. If you were fortunate enough to have your pick of the "hot" deals in 2021 (few were and they were grinding for it!), you're almost certainly still underwater today.