After years of cybersecurity startups getting swallowed by acquisitions — Alphabet’s $32 billion Wiz deal being the headline act — the IPO window is finally cracking open. Netskope’s successful September debut (up 18% on opening day) and Rubrik’s solid 2024 launch have given boardrooms something they haven’t had in a while: a credible path to the public markets. According to PitchBook’s VC Exit Predictor, a handful of well-funded cybersecurity startups are now in striking distance of going public, and several are openly signaling their intentions. We also added our own IPO hopefuls to the list, including Australian third-party risk firm UpGuard, which raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by Springcoast Partners in late February
Leading the pack is Snyk, the AI-powered developer security platform that hit $300 million in ARR by December 2024. CEO Peter McKay has telegraphed a 2026 IPO, and the company was reportedly drafting a prospectus as far back as early 2024 before postponing. Arctic Wolf, the security operations provider, is also shifting gears — after years of saying it would only go public if market conditions improved, CEO Nick Schneider told Axios in November that the company is now actively preparing. Cohesity, backed by Nvidia, is gearing up for a 2026 listing after shelving its Veritas acquisition plans.
The list extends to companies that have been IPO-adjacent for years. Illumio, the zero-trust segmentation specialist, hasn’t raised capital since its $225 million Series F in June 2021 — a telltale sign it’s been running toward an exit. OneTrust, the data privacy and compliance platform, has been weighing either a public offering or a sale to private equity. ID.me had a monster 2025, pulling in $615 million across two funding rounds on the strength of its government identity verification contracts. Immuta, backed by major cybersecurity VC funds, continues to build its cloud-native data access control platform, while Island‘s enterprise browser has seen its valuation more than triple to $4.8 billion since 2023 despite the company keeping quiet about specific IPO timing.
What’s changed? The broader IPO market is thawing after a prolonged freeze, and Netskope and Rubrik proved that cybersecurity companies can command strong first-day pops. With Wiz going the acquisition route rather than IPO, there’s a gap in the market for a major public cybersecurity pure-play. These nine startups represent the next wave — each at a different stage of readiness, but all facing the same fundamental question: when the window opens, will you be ready to jump?
Source: Morningstar / PitchBook
