BULLSEYE TECHNOLOGY VENTURES

Cloud security startup Zscaler closes at $33 up 106% on its first day of trading on Nasdaq .

The first post-billion, big tech IPO of the year has opened with a bang. Zscaler, a security startup that confidentially filed for an IPO last year, closed out its first day of trading at $33/share, up 106% from its opening price of $16.

The enterprise cloud services company started trading this morning as ZS on Nasdaq at a price of $27.50/share, a pop of 71.9 percent on its opening price, and its stock today reached a peak of $33.37. The activity on Zscaler could point to a bullish moment for security startups, and potentially public listings for tech companies in general — as well as some pent-up demand in a climate that has been somewhat dry for big tech IPOs after some notable flops.

That could bode well for Dropbox, Spotify and others that are planning or considering public listings in the coming weeks and months.

Zscaler, a cloud-services company, posted revenues of $125.7 million in 2017 with net losses of $35.5 million and said in its S-1 that it expected to “continue to incur net losses for the foreseeable future.” But it priced its IPO modestly, and the result was that there seemed to be more of an appetite for the company than expected.

Initially, Zscaler had expected to sell 10 million shares at a range between $10 and $12 per share, but interest led the company to expand that to 12 million shares at a $13-15 range, which then moved up to $16 and Zscaler last night raising $192 million giving it a valuation of over $1.9 billion — a sign of strong interest in the investor community that it’s now hoping will follow through in its debut and beyond.

Zscaler is a specialist in an area called software-defined perimeter (SDP) services, which allow enterprises and other organizations to better control how they allow employees to access apps and specific services within their IT networks: the idea is that rather than giving access to the full network, employees are authenticated just for the apps that they specifically need for their work.

SDP architectures have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way of better mitigating security threats in networks where employees are using a variety of devices, including their own private mobile phones, to access data and apps in corporate networks and in the cloud — both of which have become routes for malicious hackers to breach systems.

SDP services are being adopted by the likes of Google, and are being built by a number of other tech companies, both those that are looking to provide more value-added services around existing cloud or other IT offerings, and those that are already playing in the area of security, including Cisco, Check Point Software, EMC, Fortinet, Intel, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec (which has been involved in IP lawsuits with Zscaler) and more — which speaks both of the opportunity and challenge in the market for Zscaler. Estimates of the value of the market range from $7.8 billion to $11 billion by 2023.

Insight Partners Acquires Armis at a $1.1 Billion Valuation

Acquisition Focused on Accelerating Armis’ Growth and Underscores the Company’s Leadership Position in Addressing a Massive Global Enterprise IoT Security Market Need

• – Largest-Ever Enterprise IoT Security Software Acquisition
• – Largest Acquisition of a Private Israeli Cyber Security Company Ever
• – Positions Armis to Lead with Best-in-Class Device Behavior Tracking and Incident Response Platform
• – Armis was founded in late 2015 to enable enterprises to adopt new connected devices without fear of compromise by cyber attack
• – CapitalG also participated in the transaction,

PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Armis, the leader in enterprise IoT security, today announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Insight Partners (Insight), a global software investor respected for its track record of scaling up industry disruptors, to further strengthen its market dominance in unmanaged device security.

Under the terms of the agreement, Insight will acquire the company for cash at a valuation of $1.1 billion, with participation from CapitalG for $100 million and rollover from certain existing stockholders. Armis will continue to operate independently and will be fully managed by its two co-founders, Yevgeny Dibrov, CEO, and Nadir Izrael, CTO, and executive team, while leveraging the support of Insight’s industry leading business strategy and ScaleUp division, Onsite. Closing is expected to occur in February and is subject to customary conditions and approvals.

“Insight is one of the most sophisticated software investors in the sector, and it is due to the depth of their domain expertise that they really understand the enterprise IoT device challenge we are looking to solve, and the size of the market opportunity. We considered growth rounds and strategic offers, but by partnering with Insight we have the best of both worlds – operational support and independence, both of which were important in our decision to take on a scaleup partner this early in our company journey,” said Yevgeny Dibrov, co-founder and CEO at Armis. “We are thankful for the support we received from our investors at Sequoia, Tenaya, Bain, and Red Dot; and we, as well as the whole Armis team, are very excited to have Insight working alongside us as we enter this next phase, accelerating our platform and growth.”

According to Gartner, there will be 25 billion connected devices by 2021. The challenge faced is that these unmanaged and un-agentable devices have no security and represent the fastest growing attack landscape for organizations globally, with attacks up 300% in 2019 alone. Armis reports that by 2021, up to 90% of all devices will be unmanaged and unsecured – dramatically increasing potential vector points for attack and creating a massive security gap within businesses and organizations.

“One of the biggest challenges keeping CIOs and CISOs up at night is how to secure the unmanaged devices proliferating through their businesses, from manufacturing floors to hospital rooms, from airports to boardrooms. These devices – capturing and creating business critical information, working on production lines, or administering patient care – have no protection and they need a security solution,” said Nadir Izrael, CTO and co-founder at Armis. “The exponential growth of Armis to date illustrates just how critical securing unmanaged devices is for businesses. With the backing of Insight, we will continue to expand our world class technology to help identify devices, track their behavior and respond to the threats that target them.”

Armis lets organizations safely embrace unmanaged and IoT devices throughout their business. Armis grew significantly in 2018 and continued its tremendous growth in its current fiscal year across all verticals, from the Fortune 100 (including 25% of the Fortune 50) to the Global 2000 to mid-size organizations, across all verticals, including high tech, healthcare, industrial, retail, smart cities/building, transportation, and more. Armis is used by global organizations such as Allergan, Mondelēz, Oracle and Sysco Foods, among others.

“Armis is one of the most ground-breaking enterprise data-centric security solutions that is actively protecting modern businesses today. Having achieved exponential growth to date, we are proud to be the partner Armis can leverage to help execute their vision of protecting unmanaged devices proliferating every vertical around the world. We see the huge problem they are solving,” said Jeff Horing, Managing Director at Insight. “Armis has established themselves as the leader in the enterprise IoT security space, and we believe this team and their technology will continue to transform the way unmanaged devices are secured.”

Teddie Wardi, Managing Director at Insight, said, “The strength of Israeli security software is unquestionable, and we are thrilled to be the scaleup partner Armis has selected to continue their explosive growth journey. We’ve spoken with their users who have told us how powerful the Armis platform is at device discovery, classification, and continuous threat assessment. In a world of unmanaged devices, Armis’ technology is a game changer.”

“Armis is the largest Israeli Cybersecurity acquisition of a private company ever and this is an important milestone in the Armis journey, building a substantial stand-alone Cybersecurity power-house,” said Gili Raanan Chairman of Armis and General Partner at Sequoia Israel and Cyberstarts.

As part of the acquisition, Insight Founder Jeff Horing, Insight Managing Director Teddie Wardi, and Cyberstarts Founder Gili Raanan will be serving on the Armis Board of Directors.

About Armis Armis is the leading agentless, enterprise-class security platform to address the new threat landscape of unmanaged and IoT devices. Fortune 1000 companies trust our unique out-of-band sensing technology to discover and analyze all managed, unmanaged, and IoT devices—from traditional devices like laptops and smartphones to new unmanaged smart devices like smart TVs, webcams, printers, HVAC systems, industrial control systems, medical devices and more. Armis discovers devices on and off the network, continuously analyzes endpoint behavior to identify risks and attacks, and protects critical information and systems by identifying suspicious or malicious devices and quarantining them. It is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Insight Partners Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight currently has over $20 billion of assets under management and has cumulatively invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. Our mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. Across our people and our portfolio, we encourage a culture around a core belief: growth equals opportunity. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.

About CapitalG CapitalG, formerly Google Capital, is the late-stage growth venture capital fund financed by Alphabet Inc., and based in San Francisco, CA. Founded in 2013, it focuses on growth stage technology companies, helping them scale with support from Google’s vast expertise and resources. For further information about CapitalG, please visit www.capitalg.com.