Netskope tracks Rubrik as a rare cybersecurity IPO, both backed by Lightspeed

Cybersecurity is a large sector, but startups in the category are more likely to be acquired than they are publicly available. Even Wiz, who had held the title of the fastest growing startup for a while, gave up his IPO ambitions when he agreed to sell to Google earlier this year.

Over the past few years, there have been few significant cybersecurity debuts like the 2021 Sentinel Lawn and last year’s Rubrik.

Next week, the sector will add another public company called Netskope, the cloud cybersecurity platform. The 13-year-old startup shares the earliest and largest investors with Rubrik: Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The large Silicon Valley company had 23.9% ownership of Lubric when it was released for $6.6 billion last year. In the case of Netskope, LightSpeed ​​owns 19.3% of the company aimed to achieve a valuation of up to $6.5 billion, according to updated S1 filings.

LightSpeed ​​first supported Netskope in 2013, leading the company’s $21 million Series B.

The company sets the IPO priced from $15 to $17 per share, valued at $6.5 billion at the top of the range, giving Lightspeed a windfall of about $1.1 billion in terms of the value of the stock.

Other major investors in Netskope include ICONIQ’s growth, which holds 19.2% of the company’s stake, followed by nearly 9% stake.

Netskope is known as the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) provider. We provide cybersecurity for enterprise cloud infrastructure using products such as Secure Web Gateways and Firewalls as services. The company’s main competitors are Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks.

The company was last valued at $7.5 billion and raised a $300 million Series H in 2021, leading the ICONIQ growth rate of ZIRP ERA. He also won a $401 million convertible note in 2023.

However, these capital injections were not sufficient to bring Netskope to profitability. In the first half of the year, Netskope’s revenues rose to $328.5 million from $251.3 million the previous year. Meanwhile, its net loss has shrunk from $206.7 million to $169.5 million, the filing shows.

If Netskope is published at a $6.5 billion valuation, the company will be one of the many VCs backed up that recently fell below its final private market valuation.

Other companies published under the latest private assessment include chime and hinge health. However, not all new lists are carefully filled. Recent IPOs such as Figma and Circle have skyrocketed on the first day of transactions.