Netskope follows Rubrik as a rare IPO from CyberSecurity, both supported by Lightspeed | Techcrunch

Cyber ​​security is a huge sector, but startups in the category are more likely to be taken over than to become public. Even Wiz, who had the title of the fastest growing startup for a while, left his IPO ambitions when it agreed to sell to Google earlier this year.

In recent years there have been few important cyber security debut, such as Sentinelone in 2021, and last year rubr.

Next week the sector is expected to add another public company: the Cloud Cyber ​​Security Platform Netskope. The 13-year-old Startup also shares his earliest and largest investor with Rubrik: Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The large Silicon Valley company had a 23.9% of Rubrik when it became $ 6.6 billion last year. In the case of Netskope, Lightspeed has 19.3% of the company that, according to the updated, wants to achieve a rating of no less than $ 6.5 billion S1 -Investor.

Lightspeed first backed netskope in 2013, with the series B.

The company set up its IPO price between $ 15 and $ 17 per share, and at the top of that reach it would be appreciated at $ 6.5 billion, which means that Lightspeed has around $ 1.1 billion windfall in terms of the value of its interest.

The other major investors of the Netskope include Iconiq growth, which owns 19.2% of the shares of the company, followed by accel with an interest of almost 9%.

Netskope is known as a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) provider. It offers cyber security for the cloud infrastructure of a company, with products such as secure webgateways and firewall as a service. The most important competitors of the company are Zscaler and Palo Alto networks.

The company was last appreciated at $ 7.5 billion, when it achieved a series H of $ 300 million under the leadership of Iconiq growth in 2021, the height of the ZIRP era. It also took one $ 401 million Convertible Note in 2023.

But those capital infusions were not enough to get Netskope to profitability. For the first half of the year, the sales of Netskope grew to $ 328.5 million of $ 251.3 million a year ago. During that time the net loss was reduced to $ 169.5 million from $ 206.7 million, according to the submission.

If Netskope becomes public with a valuation of $ 6.5 billion, the company would belong to a number of companies supported by VC that recently debuted under their final private market rating.

Other companies that are public under their latest private evaluation include Chime and Hinge Health. But not all new offers become careful with caution. Some recent IPOs, such as Figma and Circle, have risen on the first day of trade.