Skybox Security Inc. has replaced its CEO and announced $50 million in new funding.
The San Jose cybersecurity business named Mo Rosen to be its new head. Rosen, previously the CEO Digital Guardian Inc., a Massachusetts-based data security business, will be charged with driving adoption of Skybox's software-as-a-service, or SaaS, offerings.
"Mo brings a wealth of knowledge and a track record of success in leading cybersecurity and SaaS companies, and we have every confidence that he will lead Skybox to its next level of long-term growth and profitability," Jason Glass, a partner at Skybox backer CVC, said in the a press release.
Rosen succeeds Gidi Cohen, who led the company for most of the 20 years since he founded it. Cohen will now serve as a strategic adviser at Skybox.
The leadership change comes as the company, whose software helps enterprises assess and manage their security risks and policies, raised a new round of funding from CVC Growth Funds, Pantheon Ventures and J.P. Morgan.
Here's more Bay Area venture and startup news from the end of the week:
Fundings
- Arrcus Inc., San Jose, $50 million: Prosperity7 Ventures, a unit of Saudi Aramco, led the Series D round for this provider of networking software. Clear Ventures, General Catalyst, Liberty Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank also invested.
- Ionblox Inc., Fremont, $8 million: Applied Ventures, Lilium NV, Catalus Capital Management and Temasek Holdings invested in the Series B round for this developer of batteries for electric aircraft.
- Mawari Inc., San Jose, $6.5 million: Blockchange Ventures and Decasonic led the seed round for this developer of a streaming delivery service for augmented reality content. Abies Ventures, Accord Ventures, Anfield, Outlier Ventures and Primal Capital also participated.
- Sesame Labs Inc., San Francisco, $4.5 million: Wing VC and Patron Venture led the seed round for this provider of marketing services for Web3 companies. DoubleJump Games Inc., Forte Labs Inc., MoonFire Ventures, Samsung Electronics Co. and Twin Ventures also invested.
- Alchemy Technologies Inc. (dba Replo), San Francisco, $4.2 million: La Famiglia, Infinity Ventures, Figma Ventures and Y Combinator invested in the seed round for provider of a service that helps e-commerce companies build and modify Shopify pages.
- Snapser Inc., Foster City, $2.6 million: Andreessen Horowitz led the seed round for this provider of video game development software.
IPOs
- Nextracker Inc. raised about $638 million in an upsized initial public offering. The Fremont business sold 26.6 million shares — 14% more than planned — $24 a piece, which was at the top of its forecasted range. Shares (Nasdaq: NXT) of the company, which offers sun tracking systems for solar arrays, jumped by nearly 27% in their first day of trading Thursday.
- Hesai Group raised $190 million in an IPO. The Chinese company, which has an office in Palo Alto, priced its offering at the high end of its $17-$19 range. The lidar sensor maker's American depository shares (Nasdaq: HSAI) rose by nearly 11% Thursday.
M&A
- Bessemer Venture Partners has acquired a majority stake in Litify Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Based in New York, Litify offers business operations software for law firms. Bessemer is based in Redwood City.
- Indie Semiconductor announced plans to acquire GEO Semiconductor Inc. for $180 million, including $90 million in cash and 12 million shares. Based in Aliso Viejo and legally known as Ay Dee Kay LLC, indie (Nasdaq: INDI) offers lighting, connectivity and driver's assistance chips and software for cars. San Jose-based GEO offers image sensing and video processing chips for automotive camera systems.
Funders in the news
- Andreessen Horowitz has promoted Eddy Lazzarin to chief technology officer of its cryptocurrency investment unit. Andreessen is a venture firm based in Menlo Park.
- Headline has named Matt Brown as a vice president. The San Francisco venture firm also conferred the same title on Taylor Brandt, Jacob Conger and Nicolas Von Blottnitz.
- Silicon Valley Bank promoted Ashraf Hebela to head its tech and health care banking. The Santa Clara financial company also named Lewis Hower to head its startup banking business.
