Wiz - Experts & Thought Leaders

Cloud security pioneer Wiz announced the appointment of Fazal Merchant as its President & Chief Financial Officer. Merchant will lead Wiz's financial strategy and partner to drive operational excellence in support of the company's unprecedented growth while also ensuring IPO readiness. endpoint management company Merchant joins Wiz as a highly accomplished executive, advisor, and board member with nearly 30 years of diverse global leadership experience scaling public and private companies. He most recently served as Co-CEO of Tanium, an endpoint management company that he helped grow three-fold to almost $10 billion in under four years. Before that, he was CFO of DreamWorks Animation SKG and managed the company's sale to Comcast.  Work experience He spent several years in senior leadership roles domestically and internationally in Investment Banking Merchant also held leadership roles at DirecTV, including Head of Corporate Development and CFO of DirecTV Latin America, guiding the company's sale to AT&T. Earlier in his career, he spent several years in senior leadership roles domestically and internationally in Investment Banking and Ford Motor Company. Merchant currently serves on the boards of Ariel Investments, Ryman Hospitality Properties, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Product innovation This strategic hire caps off a landmark 12-month period for Wiz. From a $1 billion mega-round, this past May to three acquisitions (Dazz, Gem Security, and Raftt), breakthroughs in security research, key executive hires, and widespread industry recognition with Wiz being named the #1 security product by independent customer reviews on G2. Additionally, Wiz has continued to focus on product innovation, releasing new capabilities to empower customers to secure every stage of the application lifecycle and better protect their cloud and AI environments. Hands-on experience "I've spent over a year getting to know Fazal and hiring someone of his caliber in such a dynamic industry and at this stage in our evolution is a game-changer," said Assaf Rappaport, Co-Founder and CEO of Wiz. "Fazal brings a wealth of knowledge and hands-on experience building and scaling some of the world's most iconic companies. He's perfectly equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with leading a fast-growing company at our scale. We're thrilled to welcome him to Wiz as we embark on this exciting journey together." Operational excellence "Wiz represents a generational opportunity. Few companies in recent times have had such a profound impact on an industry in such a short period by addressing the critical needs of so many global enterprises. Wiz's record-breaking momentum has been nothing short of spectacular, and a testament to a great team of innovators," said Fazal Merchant, Wiz's President & CFO. "I'm thrilled to join the team and help align financial strategy and operational excellence with vision as Wiz continues to pioneer the future of cybersecurity, achieving new milestones and redefining the industry."

Commvault, a provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions for the hybrid cloud announced an expansion of its cyber and data security ecosystem through strategic integrations with an array of security partners: Acante, Dasera, Google Cloud, Splunk, and Wiz.   Cyber resilience These integrations play a key role in helping joint customers advance cyber resilience in a variety of ways across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments from identifying potential threats or anomalies, to understanding where sensitive data exists, to accelerating clean recoveries. These bi-directional integrations also empower customers to use their preferred security, data protection, and cyber recovery solutions. Recovery ability Only 13% of organizations are equipped to effectively defend against and rapidly recover from cyberattacks Security operations teams can leverage these integrations to help better understand risks and threats, defend against them, and recover with confidence. The need for these types of integrations has never been more critical or timely.  According to a recent study commissioned by Commvault and conducted by GigaOm, only 13% of organizations are equipped to effectively defend against and rapidly recover from cyberattacks, with 54% of these organizations expressing full confidence in their recovery abilities. For more on these findings, read the 2024 Cyber Recovery Readiness Report.   Cyber security, DSPM, and AI “Commvault is committed to partnering with industry leaders in cyber security, data security posture management (DSPM), and artificial intelligence (AI) with one goal in mind to help customers advance their security posture,” said Rajiv Kottomtharayil, Chief Product Officer, Commvault. “It takes a village to fight today’s cyber threats, and through these integrations, we help enable our customers to build a bridge towards true organizational resilience.”   Advance data discovery Integrations with these partners continue to advance data discovery and classification, cyber resilience, and cyber security.  Acante: Acante's data access governance solution for modern data and AI clouds empowers data teams to radically simplify and dramatically accelerate precise, secure, and compliant access to their fast-growing critical data.   Dasera: Offers DSPM solutions that help companies identify where sensitive structured and unstructured data is, automate data security and governance, and rapidly find, flag, and fix data security risks.   Google Threat Intelligence: Provides unmatched threat visibility and actionable context powered by AI to help organizations proactively set defenses, hunt efficiently, and investigate and respond to new and novel threats. With a Google Threat Intelligence licensed API key, customers can realize a seamless experience to investigate Commvault-detected threats without jumping between tabs.   Splunk: Enhances threat detection and response capabilities via Splunk's advanced data analytics platform, providing real-time operational intelligence for comprehensive security insights.   Wiz: Delivers a consolidated cloud security platform that excels in providing clarity, visibility, and context, enabling users to secure their cloud environments. Quotes from integration partners  Acante: “We are thrilled to partner with an industry leader like Commvault to help customers bolster their data resiliency by combining Commvault’s cutting-edge data protection technology with Acante’s data access governance solution,” said Ranga Rangachari, Acante CEO and co-founder. “This integration dramatically enhances our customers' data security posture.” Dasera: “Our DSPM solutions complement Commvault’s offerings and help to provide continuous monitoring and rapid remediation of data security risks,” said Ani Chaudhuri, Dasera CEO and Cofounder. “Together, we are committed to helping organizations achieve robust data security and compliance.” Wiz: “The collaboration between Wiz and Commvault delivers cloud security context that enables highly secure backup recoveries with embedded vulnerability patching,” said Oron Noah, VP of Product Extensibility & Partnership at Wiz. “We're paving the way for a new era of cloud resilience, where data protection and security go hand in hand.” Availability These new integrations are available immediately through Commvault and its partners.

DeepL, a pioneering language AI company, announced $300 million of investment at a $2 billion valuation. Led by Index Ventures, the heavily oversubscribed round attracted strong support from new investors, who will bring their extensive expertise, connections, and resources to support DeepL's growth and long-term vision to transform the way companies communicate around the world. Additional late-stage investors, including ICONIQ Growth, Teachers' Venture Growth, and others, also participated, along with existing investors IVP, Atomico, and WiL. DeepL's most transformative year "We're approaching an inflection point in the AI boom where businesses who are racing to adopt the technology begin to discern between hype versus solutions that are secure and actually solve real problems in their business," said Jarek Kutylowski, founder and CEO of DeepL. "This new investment comes during what is on track to be DeepL's most transformative year yet and is a testament to the crucial role that our Language AI platform has in solving the complex linguistic challenges global companies face today. We're highly focused on continued growth and innovation to expand our solutions and ensure they remain industry-leading in terms of quality, precision, and security. This will bring us closer to a future where every company, regardless of location, can operate seamlessly on a global scale with our AI." Expansion efforts and strategic investments DeepL has revved its growth efforts and strategic investments into key markets over the past year The new investment comes during a period of significant growth and momentum for DeepL, which has amassed a customer network of 100,000+ businesses, governments, and other organizations worldwide. This network includes Zendesk, Nikkei, Coursera, and Deutsche Bahn, who rely on its highly accurate and secure enterprise Language AI platform to deliver seamless communication, driving international growth and cost savings.  In response to surging demand from global enterprises, DeepL has accelerated its expansion efforts and strategic investments into key markets over the past year. In January 2024, DeepL deepened its commitment to the U.S.—now its third-largest market—by opening its first office in the region. The company continues to expand its team in the U.S. to support growing demand. Expand the range of languages DeepL has also substantially broadened its product offerings tailored for businesses Within the last 12 months, DeepL has also substantially broadened its product offerings tailored for businesses. In April 2024, the company launched DeepL Write Pro, a writing assistant specifically tailored for business writing, powered by its own proprietary LLM technology. The company also continues to expand the range of languages supported by its platform with the recent additions of Arabic, as well as Korean and Norwegian, bringing its total number of languages to 32. Cutting-edge AI products "DeepL's runaway success is a bit of an 'open secret' in the business community," said Danny Rimer, who led the investment from Index Ventures.  "The company is exceptionally thoughtful about creating cutting-edge AI products that deliver real and immediate value to their customers. Jarek and the rest of the DeepL team are equally research and commercially-minded – both of which are key to the company's success." Index Ventures is recognized for its investments in highly successful SaaS businesses like Figma, Slack, Wiz, and Scale AI. Variety of communication challenges A recent IBM study saw that 42% are actively deploying AI and 40% are exploring its potential Demand for AI solutions among global enterprises is on the rise. A recent IBM study found that 42% are already actively deploying AI and 40% are exploring its potential. Within this rapidly evolving landscape, DeepL is pioneering the way in applying AI to transform the $67.9 billion language industry, which is projected to grow to $95.3 billion by 2028. Since its inception in 2017, DeepL has become the language AI provider of choice for businesses across multiple industries including manufacturing, legal, retail, healthcare, technology, and professional services. The company's specialized language AI platform has become a critical investment for global businesses, addressing a variety of communication challenges ranging from internal communications to customer support and international market expansion.  Translation and writing solutions Unlike general-purpose AI systems, DeepL's cutting-edge translation and writing solutions rely on specialized AI models specifically tuned for language, resulting in more precise translations for a variety of use cases and a reduced risk of hallucinations and misinformation. In business translation and writing, accuracy is paramount, making specialized AI models the most reliable and preferred solution for language challenges. DeepL's language AI platform is also proven to drive significant cost savings and efficiencies DeepL's language AI platform is also proven to drive significant cost savings and efficiencies. A 2024 Forrester study revealed that the use of DeepL delivered 345% ROI for global companies, reducing translation time by 90% and driving a 50% in workload reduction, underscoring, in the opinion, the power of its platform for businesses looking to grow their revenue and enter new markets faster and at scale. DeepL's industry-pioneering translation "At Zendesk we see firsthand the power of infusing AI tools into customer experience, and DeepL's industry-pioneering translation is a prime example," said Adrian McDermott, CTO, Zendesk. "The ability to have accurate AI translation allows companies from startups to large enterprises the ability to scale globally, reaching prospects and existing customers in new ways. Zendesk's open and flexible platform allows for seamless partnerships, and the tangible results we've seen so far from joint customers have us looking forward to continued work with DeepL." Looking ahead, DeepL will continue to invest in research and product innovation to strengthen its suite of pioneering AI communication tools for businesses. The company is also doubling down on global market expansion and talent recruitment across multiple areas including AI research, product, engineering, and GTM.