Israeli cloud security startup Wiz Inc. is reportedly in talks to raise $800 million in new funding on a valuation of $10 billion or more.

The Financial Times was the first to report the news today, referencing “people familiar with the matter” saying that Wiz is in talks with investors, including Thrive Capital Partners LP, Light Speed Venture Partners LP and G Squared LP. Sequoia Capital Operations LLC and Cyberstarts Inc. were also said to be in talks to participate in the round. The same report added that terms have not been finalized and details could shift or break down.

Wiz first emerged in December 2020 with $100 million in funding. The company was founded by Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica and Roy Reznik, former leads of Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group and the founding team of Adallo Inc., a cybersecurity startup acquired by Microsoft for $320 million in 2015.

Wiz offers a software platform that helps companies detect vulnerabilities and malicious activity in their cloud setup across network, identity, compute, application and secrets, presenting all the information in one place at any scale to deliver quicker insights and informed decision-making.

The service ranks vulnerabilities through a risk-weighted view that allows users to assess vulnerabilities and misconfigurations based on severity, exposure, exploitability, blast radius and business impact. Wiz’s platform provides support for Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Kubernetes application programming interfaces.

Wiz was most recently in the news in December when it announced its first acquisition, that of fellow Israeli cybersecurity firm and Kubernetes security company Raftt Systems Ltd. Though the price of the acquisition was not disclosed, Raftt had an estimated value of $40 million to $50 million before being snapped up by Wiz.

Despite apparently strong growth — the Financial Times said Wiz is generating $350 million in annual recurring revenue — the company has not been without issues, and the biggest issue of all is a lawsuit filed by Orca Security Ltd. in July claiming that Wiz has infringed on its patents.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, claimed that Wiz built its business on infrastructure that Orca had first developed and, in doing so, intentionally violated Orca’s intellectual property. The lawsuit demands that Wiz halt offering all products and services that infringe its IP and pay financial compensation for using Orca’s patents.

Orca claimed in the suit that “Wiz recruited Ora’s former patent attorney to copy Orca’s intellectual property and even the figures from Orca’s patents. Wiz has embedded a number of revolutionary inventions developed and patented by Orca, passed those inventions off falsely as Wiz innovations and forced Orca to compete against its own technological breakthroughs in the marketplace.”

The suit claimed that Wiz’s actions were “illegal, unjust and in violation of United States patent laws.” The lawsuit is ongoing.

Image: Wiz