Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO of data security software company Rubrik. Sinha previously backed cloud management company Nutanix.
Greylock Partners
Rubrik, a nine-year-old data security software vendor, filed to go public on Monday, the latest venture-backed company to move toward the public market after an extended lull dating back to late 2021.
The Silicon Valley company got its start selling hardware that companies could use to back up their data in a modernized fashion relative to traditional players in the space. Rubrik then had to evolve to the cloud, where it now gets most of its revenue from software that “detects, analyzes, and remediates data security risks and unauthorized user activities,” according to its IPO prospectus.
Competitors includes Dell, IBM, Veeam and Cohesity.
Rubrik plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RBRK.” Revenue in the fiscal year ended January rose about 5% to $627.9 million. The company’s net loss widened to $354.2 million from $277.7 million a year earlier. More than three-quarters of Rubrik’s revenue went to pay for sales and marketing in the latest fiscal year.
Following a dry spell that lasted over two years, the market for initial public offerings is showing signs of life in recent weeks. In March, social media company Reddit and data center technology vendor Astera Labs went public on consecutive days. Both popped out of the gate, boosting optimism that more companies may line up to test the market.
Prior to that, the last two venture-backed tech IPOs in the U.S. were Instacart and Klaviyo in September 2023. Those deals received tepid responses on Wall Street and failed to crack open the window. After a record IPO year in 2021, soaring inflation and rising interest rates pushed investors out of tech and other risky assets, leading to a drying up in tech investing in the public and private markets.
The co-founders of Rubrik
Source: Rubrik
Rubrik is led by CEO Bipul Sinha, who invested in cloud management software vendor Nutanix before that company’s 2016 public offering. Sinha co-founded Rubrik in 2014 with Arvind Jain, Soham Mazumdar and Arvind Nithrakashyap. Jain is now co-founder and CEO of Glean, which makes software that helps corporate workers find internal information from varied data sources.
Rubrik said in its prospectus that since April 2021, it has paid Glean $356,000 for software. Lightspeed Venture Partners investor Ravi Mhatre, a Rubrik director, also sits on Glean’s board. Rubrik is backed by Microsoft and said it’s committed to spending $220 million over up to 10 years on Microsoft’s Azure public cloud.
Lightspeed, Sinha’s former employer and the firm that led Rubrik’s first round of funding in 2015, is the company’s biggest shareholder, with a 24% stake, according to the filing. Greylock Partners is second with a 12% stake, followed by Sinha, who owns 7.6%. Jain and Nithrakashyap own 7% and 6.7%, respectively.
Like Reddit, Rubrik will hold a directed share program to offer IPO shares to certain partners, friends and family members.
Rubrik had 3,100 employees and 6,100 clients as of January. The company counted on three channel partners — Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, Exclusive Networks and Promark Technology — for 76% of its revenue in the latest fiscal year.
Liz Reid, vice president, search, Google speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022.
Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images
Testimony in Google‘s antitrust search remedies trial that wrapped hearings Friday shows how the company is calculating possible changes proposed by the Department of Justice.
Google head of search Liz Reid testified in court Tuesday that the company would need to divert between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, roughly 20% of Google’s search organization, to carry out some of the proposed remedies, a source with knowledge of the proceedings confirmed.
The testimony comes during the final days of the remedies trial, which will determine what penalties should be taken against Google after a judge last year ruled the company has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.
The DOJ, which filed the original antitrust suit and proposed remedies, asked the judge to force Google to share its data used for generating search results, such as click data. It also asked for the company to remove the use of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
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The DOJ also proposed the company divest its Chrome browser but that was not included in Reid’s initial calculation, the source confirmed.
Reid on Tuesday said Google’s proprietary “Knowledge Graph” database, which it uses to surface search results, contains more than 500 billion facts, according to the source, and that Google has invested more than $20 billion in engineering costs and content acquisition over more than a decade.
“People ask Google questions they wouldn’t ask anyone else,” she said, according to the source.
Reid echoed Google’s argument that sharing its data would create privacy risks, the source confirmed.
Closing arguments for the search remedies trial will take place May 29th and 30th, followed by the judge’s decision expected in August.
The company faces a separate remedies trial for its advertising tech business, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.
From left, Parker Conrad, co-founder and CEO of Rippling, and Kleiner Perkins investor Ilya Fushman speak at the venture firm’s Fellows Founders Summit in San Francisco in September 2022.
Rippling
Human resources software startup Rippling said Friday that its valuation has swelled to $16.8 billion in its latest fundraising round.
The company raised $450 million in the round, and has committed to buying an additional $200 million worth of shares from current and previous employees. The company’s valuation is up from $13.5 billion in a round a year ago.
Rippling said there was no lead investor. Baillie Gifford, Elad Gil, Goldman Sachs Growth and others participated in the round, according to a statement from the San Francisco-based company.
With the tech IPO market mostly dormant over the past three-plus years, and President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on imports leading several companies to delay planned offerings, the most high-profile late-stage tech startups continue to tap private markets for growth capital. Rippling co-founder and CEO Parker Conrad told CNBC in an interview the the company isn’t planning for an IPO in the near future.
Conrad also highlighted a change that’s taken place in public markets in recent years, since inflation began soaring in late 2021, followed by higher interest rates. With concerns about the economy swirling, many tech companies downsized and took other steps toward generating and preserving cash.
“It does look a lot like, in order to be successful in the public markets, your growth rates have to come down so that you can be profitable,” said Conrad, who avoided enacting layoffs. “And so for us, that sort of pushes things out until the company looks profitable and probably slower growing, right?”
At Rippling, annual revenue growth is well over 30%, Conrad said, though he didn’t provide an updated sales figure. The information reported last year that Rippling doubled annual recurring revenue to over $350 million by the end of 2023 from a year prior.
Given the pace of expansion, Conrad said he isn’t fixated on profits at the moment at Rippling, which ranked 14th on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list.
Rippling offers payroll services, device management and corporate credit cards, among other products. Competitors include ADP, Paychex, Paycom Software and Paylocity.
There’s also privately held Deel, which Rippling sued in March for allegedly deploying a spy who collected confidential information. Conrad suggested that the publicity surrounding the case may be boosting business.
“I think it’s too early to say, looking at the data, how all of this is going to evolve from a market perspective, but certainly we see some companies that have said, ‘Hey, we’re talking to Rippling because of this,'” Conrad said.
Fortnite was booted from iPhones and Apple’s App Store in 2020, after Epic Games updated its software to link out to the company’s website and avoid Apple’s commissions. The move drew Apple’s anger, and kicked off a legal battle that has lasted for years.
Last month’s ruling, a victory for Epic Games, said that Apple was not allowed to charge a commission on link-outs or dictate if the links look like buttons, paving the way for Fortnite’s return.
Apple could still reject Fortnite’s submission. An Apple representative didn’t respond to a request for comment. Apple is appealing last month’s contempt ruling.
The announcement by Epic Games is the latest salvo in the battle between it and Apple, which has taken place in courts and with regulators around the world since 2020. Epic Games also sued Google, which operates the Play Store for Android phones.
Last month’s ruling has already shifted the economics of app development for iPhones.
Apple takes between 15% and 30% of purchases made using its in-app payment system. Linking to the web avoids those fees. Apple briefly allowed link-outs under its system but would charge a 27% commission, before last month’s ruling.
Developers including Amazon and Spotify have already updated their apps to avoid Apple’s commissions and direct customers to their own websites for payment.
Before last month, Amazon’s Kindle app told users they could not purchase a book in the iPhone app. After a recent update, the app now shows an orange “Get Book” button that links to Amazon’s website.
Fortnite has been available for iPhones in Europe since last year, through Epic Games’ store. Third-party app stores are allowed in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Users have also been able to play Fortnite on iPhones and iPad through cloud gaming services.