Wiz's Sale to Google Brings Epic VC Payday & New Hope on Exits
Plus, Rippling's lawsuit against Deel reads like an HR-tech spy thriller
The Main Item
M&A Returns As a Venture Savior
We’re finally hearing some good news about how VCs and LPs are going to get paid.
Google’s announcement this week that its acquisition of cybersecurity startup Wiz is on again, at a sweetened $32 billion, marks the biggest acquisition ever of a venture-funded company and is a huge victory for Wiz’s early VC backers led by Index Ventures’ Shardul Shah, Sequoia’s Doug Leone, Cyberstarts’ Gili Raanan, and Greenoaks’ Neil Mehta. The Wall Street Journal reported that Index is set to earn a $4.3 billion payout on its holdings, while Bloomberg noted that Sequoia will clear about $3 billion.
The fat payday could help quell LPs’ growing worries about the lack of big exits, and indicates that tech M&A could be back in a big way after the chilly days of the Biden Administration, when antitrust hawks reigned. Other recent deals including SoftBank’s move to acquire chip startup Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion, ServiceNow’s agreement to purchase Moveworks for $2.9 billion and CoreWeave’s acquisition of Weights & Biases for a reported $1.7 billion all suggest the M&A momentum is building.
Trump’s choice to head the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, has continued the agency’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta and hasn’t always been friendly to big tech, but this week’s (potentially illegal) firings of the two Democratic officials at the FTC signals the big ideological swing. Investors are certainly betting that deregulation will win out: Google agreed to a massive $3.2 billion termination fee if the deal collapses. It’s supposed to close early next year.
VCs are also hoping for a revival of the moribund IPO market, with CoreWeave and Klarna scheduled to debut in the coming weeks, though the pullback in equity markets in early March and the ongoing volatility could yet disrupt a full-fledged comeback.
While IPOs have traditionally been the career-making exits for VCs, the Wiz deal shows how far M&A could go in making even large funds. Index Ventures, Sequoia, Insight Partners, and Greenoaks own approximately 13%, 10%, 8%, and 6% of the Israeli-American security company, respectively. Lightspeed is also set to see some returns after investing in Wiz’s Series D and E rounds.
FirstMark Capital’s Rick Heitzmann said his firm has already seen five exits via M&A this quarter alone — a big jump up compared to the past two years, and he’s seeing more public acquirers and private equity firms come back to market with clear targets. “After having their corporate development teams on the sidelines for the better part of ‘23 and ‘24, they believe that they'll be less constrained by this FTC and they have a pretty good sense of what they want to buy,” Heitzmann said.
There have been 482 venture-backed startup M&A deals so far in 2025, according to data from Crunchbase.
The IPO window, meanwhile, is slightly ajar, but it’s not going to be easy for many of the unicorns waiting in the wings to get out at the valuations they achieved a few years ago.
Klarna is in a good place on this front with likely pricing at a valuation of around $15 billion. That’s a big step up from its recent low of $6 billion in 2022, but far below its high of $45 billion in 2021. CoreWeave is targeting a $32 billion valuation at the time of its offering.
President Trump’s flip-flops on the size and degree of upcoming tariffs are a wildcard that could be a further drag on the markets, and any IPOs. “When I have conversations with other people, most feel pretty confident about the 1-3 year outlook, but have a lot of questions on the less than 1 year outlook,” said Altimeter’s Jamin Ball.
If public markets don’t cooperate, and M&A isn’t in the offing for particular companies, VCs and LPs eager for liquidity might at least be able to take advantage of a more robust secondary market in private shares. Jefferies reports that 2024 was a record breaking year for secondary sales, with an estimated $140 billion in deals.
Brought to you by Vanta
Open doors to next-level growth with Vanta
As a startup founder, finding product-market fit is your top priority.
But landing bigger customers requires SOC 2 or ISO 27001 compliance—a time-consuming process that pulls you away from building and shipping.
That’s where Vanta comes in.
By automating up to 90% of the work needed for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and more, Vanta gets you compliant fast—opening doors to next-level growth opportunities.
Over 10,000 companies like Atlassian, Factory, and Chili Piper streamline compliance with Vanta’s automation and trusted network of security experts. Whether you’re closing your first deal or gearing up for growth, Vanta makes compliance easy.
Learn more and claim a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta.
Newcomer Podcast
The Biggest Deal of the Year!
On the podcast, we open in a celebratory mood this week with Wiz’s big exit to Google, which if it holds will offer some much needed liquidity to venture firms and their LPs. It’s a big win for several of Silicon Valley’s heavy hitters, including Sequoia’s Doug Leone, Index Ventures’ Shardul Shah, and Greenoaks’ Neil Mehta. IPOs are looking a little bit more uncertain, however.
Plus, Deel’s alleged corporate espionage at Rippling has all the makings of a great HR tech spy thriller.
Next up, we touch on the new liberal “abundance” agenda, which has more than a few similarities to Marc Andreessen's “Time to Build” manifesto.
In the second half of our show, Eric sits down with Browserbase CEO Paul Klein to discuss their tools for running headless browsers and their rapid growth over the past year.
Browserbase is one of the top companies on this year’s ET30, Wing’s annual list of enterprise tech companies based on a survey of top venture capitalists.
Chapters:
01:40 — Google's $32 Billion Wiz Acquisition Opens the Door for More M&A
02:32 — Who's Getting Rich Off The Wiz Deal
07:17 — CoreWeave and Klarna's IPO Window Test Run
11:42 — Rippling <> Deel Drama
15:35 — Democrats Rebrand Silicon Valley's Abundance Agenda
18:13 — Interview with Browserbase Founder Paul Klein
YC Dispatch
YC’s Latest Batch Sees Hot Funding Rounds, Personnel Moves
At least a couple of companies in Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups have already raised sizable venture rounds, sources told us, as enthusiasm for AI agents builds.
Browser Use, an open-source AI agent, has raised from Felicis at a $100 million valuation, while Valkai, which automates workflows for life sciences companies and is still in stealth, got a check from Sequoia, according to three sources familiar with the rounds.