While the market navigates questions over when the IPO window will open and which companies are ready to go public, Lightspeed has maintained our faith in a strategy that has served us for the past two decades: focusing on the long term and investing in deep partnerships with exceptional founders to build enduring success that transcends short-term market fluctuations, because we know that winning companies are measured in decades, not quarters.
Rubrik’s listing on the NYSE today is an illustration of that strategy – it’s been a long time coming, and it happened because of Co-Founder and CEO Bipul Sinha’s grit, determination, and clear vision for the future.
Bipul was a Lightspeed partner when he first envisioned the company that would become Rubrik. He is the kind of person who always took the road less traveled if it meant better results. We knew he would apply this to Rubrik and that’s why we backed the company.
Data Security, Determination, and Conviction
His time at Lightspeed allowed him to take a bird’s-eye view towards important markets, enabling him to spot where enduring companies would be created – giving him a call to entrepreneurship despite a promising career in venture capital. He also got an up close and personal look at the life of a founder. He knew the challenges and the risks – but he also knew how to build and scale in the data security market to create innovative products for resilient data.
In 2014, backup and recovery was an established market with plenty of demand but data was increasingly becoming the fuel of global, digital transformation. More and more companies needed methods and tools to better manage their data and extract greater value from it. With this problem in mind, Bipul set out to build a solution with Arvind Jain, Arvind Nithrakashyap and Soham Mazumdar. They created the blueprint for a disruptive, flexible backup-and-recovery platform designed specifically for cyber.
They had a rare combination of unique qualities that we look for when we commit: a clear vision of the market, tried and tested leadership, and innovative products. We knew that this combination meant we had to have high conviction, which we continued to do over the course of our relationship with this team. But we consider our commitment as more than just capital. We’ve been proud to help build, not just fund, the company, ultimately helping Rubrik gather feedback on their product as the market continued to evolve.
Scaling with Purpose
When Rubrik was founded in 2013, the world was seeing a wave of cybercrime and ransomware accounts. The migration of corporate data to the cloud opened up a huge number of security fronts – which were constantly explored and challenged by bad actors. Rubrik provided novel solutions for safeguarding data across SaaS, cloud and enterprise environments, and continued to adapt its product to the growing demands of the global market. Now, with a team of 3,000 Rubrikans and over 6,100 customers, Rubrik has demonstrated its commitment to helping organizations achieve business resilience against cyberattacks.
Focusing on Future Impact
The cybersecurity landscape is ever-changing, with new surfaces for risk being created by the expanded use of data and AI. Rubrik is ready to adapt and scale against these risks to deliver best-in-class solutions to its customers. We are proud of and thankful for Rubrik’s hard work and partnership in their strategic development and global scaling process. We believe today will ultimately be one of many moments in the legacy of this exceptional company, and we look forward to supporting them as they drive even more impact for world-class businesses.
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