How Wiz went to market

PrimarySupportingTried, then dropped

1. 2020 to 2020

   CISO conversations, pivot, first enterprise deals

   The founders pitched CISOs up to ten times a day, read which reactions meant real demand, and turned from network security to cloud security. They sold the first deals themselves, to the largest companies first.

   • Sales-led

     The founders and first hires sold directly to large enterprises before there was a sales team. The first paying customer was a Fortune 10 company, and Wiz says it landed Fortune 100 customers nine months after its first line of code. The CISO feedback calls worked as a design-partner loop and drove the pivot to cloud security.^{[30],[1],[31],[32],[33],[34]}

2. 2021 to 2022

   Agentless proof of value and the $100M sprint

   Wiz sold top down to CISOs through proofs of value that connect a customer's whole cloud with no agents, while a research team and an optimistic brand built awareness. Headcount went from 40 to over 400 in about a year.

   • Sales-led

     Top-down enterprise sales to CISOs, run through proofs of value in which customers often connect their entire environment. Investors made introductions to single executives, and won accounts introduced the next ones. Wiz said it was replacing large existing solutions in every customer.^[30],[2],[4]

   • Brand narrative

     A dedicated research team published major cloud vulnerabilities such as ChaosDB and OMIGOD, and the brand avoided fear-based colours. The CMO says a deliberately odd Wiz of Oz booth at RSA, her first marketing decision, brought in about four times more leads. The interview does not date the booth.^{[3],[30],[31]}

3. 2023 to 2024

   Platform, marketplaces and partners

   As the product widened into a multi-product platform, Wiz sold more through AWS and Microsoft marketplaces, added consultancy and integration partners, built customer recognition and a community, and pushed into the US public sector.

   • Cloud marketplace

     Wiz sold heavily through AWS Marketplace and, as a MACC-enabled ISV, through the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace to strategic Azure customers. It was named 2024 AWS Marketplace Partner of the Year and later said AWS Marketplace sales passed $1 billion lifetime in just over four years.^[13],[20]

   • Partner channel

     A strategic alliance with PwC UK paired its cyber advisory services with Wiz, and the WIN integration platform for other software vendors passed 100 official integrations about a year after launch.^[9],[14]

   • Community

     The Zero Critical Club recognises customers with zero critical issues in their clouds, and the CMO calls membership the metric the company cares about. Wizdom, a community for customers and partners, launched in December 2024.^{[10],[30],[15]}

   • Sales-led

     Enterprise selling extended into the US public sector with a new Senior Director of Public Sector and a stated intent to offer a FedRAMP authorized product. Wiz for Government reached FedRAMP High authorization in September 2025.^[6],[18]

   • Brand narrative

     The optimistic brand was written down as policy: Wiz says security branding is usually built on fear and intimidation and that it chose optimism instead.^[7]

4. 2025 to now

   Inside Google Cloud, still multicloud

   Google agreed to buy Wiz in March 2025 and closed in March 2026. The CEO says Wiz remains a multi-cloud platform, and it formalised a partner programme, kept marketplace co-sell across clouds, and held its first user conference.

   • Partner channel

     The Wiz Partner Alliance launched in January 2026 for system integrators, consultancies, and resellers, letting members pick the model that fits how they go to market. At its partner summit Wiz named AWS its CSP Partner of the Year.^[21],[24]

   • Cloud marketplace

     Six months after the close, the CEO pointed to ongoing co-sell and marketplace purchasing across all clouds, with Google Cloud adding reach.^[23],[20]

   • Owned events

     Wiz held its first user conference, Wizdom, in New York in November 2025.^[19]

   • Brand narrative

     The CEO still names Wiz Research disclosures as headline milestones, and the research team shares its work with the wider security community, not only customers.^{[22],[23],[27]}

“Reported” figures come from trade press, not the company, and are shown with their date.

• “Wiz reached $100M ARR faster than any software company.”

  Partly true

  This is Wiz's own claim, and it defines it narrowly: $1M to $100M ARR in 18 months, February 2021 to about July 2022, against Deel's announced 20 months as the previous fastest. It is a company-stated record, not an independent one, and the clock starts at $1M ARR, not at founding. TechCrunch reports it as a claim.^[4],[36]

• “Wiz grew on product alone, with no sales motion.”

  Not supported

  Product speed mattered, but it fed a top-down enterprise sale. Wiz sells to CISOs, used investors for introductions, runs proofs of value as a sales step, built a public-sector team, sells through cloud marketplaces, and had over 400 staff by 2022. The founding team sold the first deals before salespeople were hired. Pricing is a custom quote; a free trial exists, but no source shows self-serve revenue.^{[30],[4],[13],[6],[25],[26]}

• “Wiz started upmarket. Our first paying customer was a Fortune 10 company.”

  Raaz Herzberg, CMO and VP Product Strategy, Wiz^[30]

  24:58

• “find that one executive you can be introduced to, and do a really, really, really good job of solving his problem for his team.”

  Raaz Herzberg, CMO and VP Product Strategy, Wiz^[30]

  37:30

• “we built a single solution that connects to a multi-cloud environment in 15 minutes”

  Assaf Rappaport, Co-founder and CEO, Wiz^[2]

  Blog post body

• In a security sale, cut time to value until the proof of value is the demo.

  Works when: The product can read the customer's real environment through read-only APIs, so the buyer sees their own findings in the first meeting, and the buyer is a CISO with budget and a known pain.

  Backfires when: Value needs agents, network changes, or weeks of tuning before anything shows. A connect-and-see proof of value then turns into a long pilot and the advantage disappears.

  Based on: Agentless proof of value and the $100M sprint, Sales-led

• Land the most demanding logos first when buyers copy each other's vendor choices.

  Works when: The founders already have enterprise credibility and references, and the buyer group is small and connected, so one large win is seen by every peer.

  Backfires when: A first-time team without references or enterprise-grade controls, where the first big deal demands scale and access features the product cannot yet carry.

  Based on: CISO conversations, pivot, first enterprise deals, Sales-led

• Treat each early enterprise customer as a referral source, not a revenue line.

  Works when: Buyers and investors form a tight peer network that can open doors to single executives.

  Backfires when: Generous early terms lock in contracts that later hurt margin and the referrals never come. Cap and date any early concessions.

  Based on: Agentless proof of value and the $100M sprint, Sales-led

• Once demand exists, sell where enterprise budget already sits: the cloud marketplaces.

  Works when: Customers hold committed cloud spend, such as AWS commitments or Azure MACC, and the product runs on or protects that cloud.

  Backfires when: The product does not run in or protect a hyperscaler workload, or deals are too small to justify marketplace fees and co-sell effort.

  Based on: Platform, marketplaces and partners, Cloud marketplace; Inside Google Cloud, still multicloud, Cloud marketplace

Compare with every other company on the GTM matrix.

1. [1]CompanyWiz comes out of stealth with $100M Series A funding to reinvent cloud security (December 9, 2020)
2. [2]CompanyWiz becomes fastest growing security startup ever with new $1.7B valuation (March 22, 2021)
3. [3]CompanyCelebrating Our Series C: Zero to $6 Billion in 18 Months (October 11, 2021)
4. [4]Company$100M ARR in 18 months: Wiz becomes the fastest-growing software company ever (August 10, 2022)
5. [5]CompanyWiz becomes the world's largest cybersecurity unicorn (February 27, 2023)
6. [6]CompanyWiz is on the FedRAMP Marketplace (April 17, 2023)
7. [7]CompanyThe Magic of Branding: Creating an Optimistic Identity for a Security Product (August 1, 2023)
8. [8]CompanySecuring clouds, securely (the Wiz approach to agentless scanning) (October 30, 2023)
9. [9]CompanyPwC and Wiz form strategic alliance in the United Kingdom (November 7, 2023)
10. [10]CompanyWelcome to the Zero Critical Club (February 26, 2024)
11. [11]CompanyDemocratizing security for maximum visibility and impact (April 12, 2024)
12. [12]CompanyCelebrating Our $1 Billion Funding Round and $12 Billion Valuation (May 7, 2024)
13. [13]CompanyIt's Magic! Wiz named Microsoft Commercial Marketplace Partner of the Year (June 27, 2024)
14. [14]CompanyCelebrating a Milestone: 100 WIN Integrations and Counting! (August 5, 2024)
15. [15]CompanyWelcome to Wizdom: Your All-in-One Cloud Security Community (December 3, 2024)
16. [16]CompanyWelcoming Our New CFO & President (January 9, 2025)
17. [17]CompanyWiz to Join Google Cloud: Making Magic Together (March 18, 2025)
18. [18]CompanyWiz for Government Earns FedRAMP High Security Approval (September 26, 2025)
19. [19]CompanyWizdom 2025 Product Announcements: Extending the Cloud Operating Model (November 4, 2025)
20. [20]CompanyWiz Becomes Fastest Security ISV to Reach $1 Billion in AWS Marketplace Lifetime Sales (December 2, 2025)
21. [21]CompanyIntroducing the Wiz Partner Alliance (January 14, 2026)
22. [22]CompanyIt's Official: Wiz Joins Google! (March 11, 2026)
23. [23]CompanyWiz's First 6 Months as Part of Google (July 29, 2026)
24. [24]CompanyAnnouncing the 2026 Wiz Partner Alliance Award Winners (August 18, 2026)
25. [25]CompanyWiz pricing: get a custom quote (live page) (October 18, 2026)
26. [26]CompanyStart your free trial of Wiz (live page) (October 18, 2026)
27. [27]CompanyWiz Research (live page) (October 18, 2026)
28. [28]SEC filingAlphabet Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (MD&A, Pending Acquisitions) (February 5, 2026)
29. [29]SEC filingAlphabet Inc. Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026 (Note 8, Acquisitions and Divestitures) (April 30, 2026)
30. [30]Founder interviewWiz CMO, Raaz Herzberg: How Wiz Built a $30BN Brand in Enterprise & What Worked vs What Was a Mega Failure (20VC) (Raaz Herzberg, December 12, 2025, at 12:32, 21:02, 24:58, 35:17, 37:30, 39:02)
31. [31]Founder interviewWiz will be bigger than CrowdStrike and Palo Alto: Cyber decacorn's top female executive shares her vision (CTech by Calcalist) (Raaz Herzberg, October 22, 2024, at article body, sections on the early CISO calls and the pivot)
32. [32]Founder interviewWiz co-founder: "We are still at the expansion stage..." (CTech by Calcalist) (Yinon Costica, April 23, 2023, at answer on the Prisma comparison)
33. [33]Founder interviewGoing from $0 to $100M ARR in just 18 months with Wiz co-founder Ami Luttwak (Sit Down Startup, Zendesk blog) (Ami Luttwak, September 5, 2023, at section "Work with your customers")
34. [34]Founder interviewCloud Captains: How Assaf Rappaport and his extraordinary co-founders built the world's fastest-growing company (Index Ventures) (Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, March 1, 2024, at direct quotes in the article body, on people and processes first)
35. [35]Founder interviewWiz CEO explains why he turned down a $23 billion deal (TechCrunch, Disrupt 2024) (Assaf Rappaport, October 28, 2024, at direct quote in the article body, on company size)
36. [36]Trade pressWiz hopes to hit $1B in ARR in 2025 before an IPO, after turning down Google's $23B (TechCrunch, October 23, 2024)

Every phase, motion, and myth verdict cites a filing, the company's own pages, or a founder speaking on the record. See the methodology.