Rubrik Hires Banks For Planned IPO: Report

The data security vendor has reportedly taken a key step toward going public, after its CEO told CRN in January that ‘we definitely have the scale and momentum’ to complete an IPO.

Rubrik co-founder and CEO Bipul Sinha

Data security vendor Rubrik has reportedly hired banks in the lead-up to a planned initial public offering, after disclosing in January that it has crossed $500 million in annual recurring revenue.

At the time, Rubrik co-founder and CEO Bipul Sinha told CRN that “obviously, at some point we want to be a public company.”

“We are watching the market and when the time is right, we’ll be a public company,” Sinha said during the interview with CRN. “We definitely have the scale and momentum [to complete an IPO].”

[Related: John Thompson On Helping Rubrik Scale And Prepare For An IPO]

Rubrik’s more than $500 million in software subscription ARR is up from $400 million in ARR as of late August. It puts the company, which helps enable businesses to recover from ransomware attacks, in the same ballpark as some of the cybersecurity industry’s publicly traded firms, such as SentinelOne.

Citing unnamed sources, Reuters reported Monday that Rubrik has hired three banks — Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Citigroup — to assist with the planned IPO. The offering, which could raise more than $750 million, could be targeted for 2024, according to the report.

Rubrik’s valuation in connection with its August 2021 funding round from Microsoft was not disclosed, but Bloomberg had reported the company valuation at $4 billion at the time. Other investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures and IVP.

In January, Rubrik also announced that it had added the former CEO of Palo Alto Networks, Mark McLaughlin, to its board.

In the interview with CRN at the time, Sinha contended that Rubrik stands alone in offering data security built on zero trust principles.

Rubrik’s advantage, according to Sinha, is that “from day one” the company was committed to an architecture for its data protection software built on zero trust, involving steeper requirements for user access to data and greater control for organizations.

As a result, “we are the only zero trust data security platform,” Sinha said. “And that’s what is driving our demand, because that’s what businesses need. They need to have a platform where you can only interact with the platform with full authentication.”

By contrast, he said, “the classic backup and recovery architecture is a ‘full trust’ architecture.”