doug leone retweeted
In our first episode of Responsible Disclosure, legendary investor and @sequoia Partner @dougleone sits down to unpack over three decades of venture capital investing, building category-defining enterprise giants, and identifying world-class startup founders.
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"A century ago, 99% of cognitive work was done by humans. In the near future, 99.9% will be done by machines."
A great piece from my partner @Konstantine
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Mateo is one of the CEOs that can definitely go all the way! @FormEnergyInc
Rebuilding the American grid is a prerequisite for AI to achieve its full potential.
@FormEnergyInc spent nearly a decade building a fundamentally new battery technology and a US manufacturing base to produce it.
@sequoia is investing $100M.
I first met @mateojaramill in spring 2020. He shared an ambitious idea: build a new battery technology that could store energy for days, not hours, using two of the cheapest and most abundant inputs imaginable – iron and air.
Since then, Form has proved that its batteries can compete with gas and can scale, winning its first big hyperscale contract earlier this year.
We believe Form Energy can become America’s battery champion.
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Introducing S1, our new foundation model that learns from one example.
It can be taught 10-minute long tasks that it has never seen before, from one video prompt without any fine-tuning.
Watch S1 operate in real-time via in-context learning:
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doug leone retweeted
Congrats to @nicckopp and the @rillethq team on their $100M round at a $1B valuation, led by @ICONIQCapital
At @sequoia we’re excited to write our third check to Nic.
Rillet is redefining what the finance function should look like 🚀
Today we're announcing our $100M Series C at a $1B valuation, led by @ICONIQCapital. It's our third round in 14 months and brings our total funding to over $200m
The round came together in less than 48 hours.
We weren't planning to raise. Then new ARR doubled last quarter and we crossed 600+ customers including public companies and enterprises with $2B in revenue. Rillet AI agent usage is growing 70% each month and CFOs are replacing Oracle Fusion, SAP and Workday to run their companies on Rillet.
We also announced our alliance with EY and officially partnered with more than half of the top 20 CPA firms.
@RilletHQ is creating an entirely new category of finance infrastructure. With Rillet, the ERP becomes the harness for the modern finance organization, where people and agents share the same financial data, apply the same accounting policies and controls, and work from a single, continuously updated view of the business. Agents perform increasingly complex financial work, while finance teams retain visibility, approval authority and a complete audit trail.
Thank you to our customers for believing in the mission and building the future of finance with us. We could not do this without you.
Thank you to the Rillet team. As I say often, building Rillet is our own version of sending rockets to Mars. It is incredibly difficult. You make it look easy.
Finally, thank you to our investors. To ICONIQ for leading the round and to our existing and new investors for building with us. @sequoia , @a16z, Sequoia Global Equities, @BainCapVC, @oakhcft, @BatteryVentures, @FirstMarkCap, @scalevp, and @creandum.
Back to work :)
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Today we're launching three new products that push the frontier of conversation intelligence. We're raising our own bar again with this next generation of @cresta Insights.
- Cresta AI Analyst has evolved into a deep research agent with reasoning capabilities. It plans and executes research, builds charts and cohort comparisons, drafts briefs, and recommends next steps, all from a plain English question.
- Topic Discovery can now support a durable, customizable AI-powered taxonomy that becomes a trusted source of truth for why customers are reaching out, without the maintenance burden of traditional approaches.
- Real-Time Trends (RTT) brings the concept of X’s surging topics to omnichannel customer conversations. It continuously detects emerging issues, anomalies, and trending topics. Some of our airline customers now detect outages from call center conversations before their operation teams do.
Together, these capabilities redefine the frontier of this entire category. We’re one step closer to our vision: one proactive customer intelligence system that doesn't wait for someone to ask the right question.
Link in thread to the full blog.
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We’ve raised $300M in Series C funding at a $10.3B valuation from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Jane Street, Argo, and SK Hynix.
Our mission is to run the world's inference. This round accelerates production of our inference clusters.
We've opened an 80,000-sqft, 10-MW facility 15 minutes from our office to expedite production and prototyping.
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$100M ARR is just the beginning. @cresta is transforming customer experience for some of the world's largest companies, and the momentum is only accelerating.
I’m excited to step into the role of Chairman of the Board and work with the team through its rapid growth phase.
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More here: prnewswire.com/news-releases…
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Extremely powerful!
Announcing Harvey Agents that execute legal work end-to-end.
They reason through problems and draft memos, presentations, and diligence reports ready for your review.
Delegate the work. Own the judgment.
Learn more: harvey.ai/agents
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Proud to be in business with the Dynamo Winston.
Excited to announce our latest funding round at an $11B valuation led by GIC and @sequoia with participation from @a16z, @coatuemgmt, @conviction, @eladgil, @EvanticCapital, and @kleinerperkins.
Thank you to our customers, team, investors, and everyone else who has helped along the way.
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doug leone retweeted
BREAKING: Google Completes $32B Acquisition of Wiz
$6M Seed → $32 Billion Exit
First seed investor Gili Raanan (@giliraanan) of Cyberstarts explains how a $6M seed check became the largest cybersecurity exit ever — & what it’s like working with CEO Assaf Rappaport.
Cyberstarts stats:
- $1.5B+ AUM across 7 funds
- Backed 30 companies
- Portfolio represents over $61B in combined value (50% of the worldwide private cybersecurity companies market)
- Backed at Seed: Wiz, Island, Fireblocks, Cyera, Transmit Security
- 9 exits including Noname, Axis, Bionic, Dazz, Avalor
This conversation took place in London February 12th, 2026.
We cover:
• Early days of @wiz_io & how the company evolved from seed to a $32B outcome
• Why Wiz achieved such strong product market fit
• What made Assaf (@assaf_rappaport) and the founding team special
• How Cyberstarts picks founders before there is product or code
• Why Gili believes AI could create the darkest decade in cybersecurity
• What the next generation of $50B–$100B cyber companies could look like
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Gili Raanan, Founder Cyberstarts
(01:05) From Sequoia to building a Cyber only venture fund
(04:39) Building CAPTCHA and the first web application firewall at 27
(05:35) Growing up in a small Israeli town and discovering computers
(09:15) Why he decided to focus only on cybersecurity
(11:05) Investing in people, not ideas
(12:45) The kind of founders he looks for
(14:05) Why adversity creates better entrepreneurs
(16:11) When a small fund delivers outsized returns
(19:00) A portfolio with 50% of private cyber market value
(20:12) Growing up introverted & learning to observe people
(26:30) What makes a company truly important
(30:48) Why do Israeli founders dominate cybersecurity?
(31:05) Helping founders become the best version of themselves
(37:06) Israeli culture, pressure, and resilience
(41:25) Breaking the ceiling with companies like Wiz
(43:24) Why limits exist mostly in our minds
(46:15) Facing fears, Yoga and overcoming internal limits
(47:32) The “Sunrise” method for finding PMF
(51:55) Why building startups is an emotional journey
(56:25) How cybersecurity ideas actually emerge
(58:15) The dark decade of cybersecurity
(01:06:45) Asimov’s laws of robotics and AI guardrails
(01:09:55) The three biggest cybersecurity risks in 2026
(01:12:25) Inside the $32B Wiz deal
(01:22:23) What makes Wiz co-founder Assaf exceptional
(01:24:33) Surrounding yourself with great people
(01:28:48) The biggest takeaways from his time at Sequoia: Doug Leone, Mike Moritz
(01:32:05) What’s next for Cyberstarts?
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Everyone knows @wiz_io broke a record reaching $100M ARR in 18 months.
What everyone doesn’t know is that the team was using a clever hack - leveraging their Israeli time zone. They’d code all day, and then the engineers would get on the phone to make sales calls all night.
Everything about Wiz changed fast in the early days - the idea, the product, the market.
What never changed was the teamwork of @assaf_rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik & @amiluttwak - their clarity of vision, their ability to listen to customers and iterate, and the commitment to moving faster than anyone else could match.
Founders: remember that in any technology cycle, in any market, a willingness to outwork everyone else is a superpower.
Congrats to @wiz_io. Excited for your next chapter with @Google
🎉 IT'S OFFICIAL: @wiz_io joins @Google to secure the AI era.
This is a massive moment for our customers and our team.
Thank you to every customer, partner, and Wizard who made this moment possible 💙
We can't wait to share what's next.
wiz.io/blog/google-closes-de…
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Congrats @roelofbotha, what an amazing run! I am proud of your stewardship personally and professionally. I remember when @alfred_lin joined Sequoia 15 years ago, and @gradypb all the way back in 2007. They are the perfect pair to steward @sequoia for its next chapter. Let’s go!
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doug leone retweeted
Frank Slootman doesn’t hand out endorsements.
So when he joins @Cyera’s board, you pay attention.
Here’s why the guy behind Snowflake & ServiceNow is all-in on AI-native data security.
cyera.io/blog/why-cyera?utm_…
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1/6 @assaf_rappaport thought I was Don Valentine when we first met. A mistaken encounter turned into a decade-plus relationship with @sequoia leading the earliest rounds in Assaf’s first company, Adallom, and @wiz_io.
Today @Google announced its intent to acquire Wiz.
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5/6 Today marks a new milestone. @wiz_io. & @googlecloud share a vision to improve security by making it easier & faster for organizations of all types & sizes to protect themselves, end-to-end, across all major clouds – helping spur the adoption of multicloud cybersecurity.
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6/6 We @sequoia couldn’t be prouder of @assaf_rappaport and the @wiz_io team.
It’s been an honor to be your partner for over a decade. Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey.
wiz.io/blog/wiz-joining-goog…
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