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Google Parent Alphabet bought Cyber Security Start-Up Wiz for about $300 billion, setting the stage for the biggest acquisition in the history of the search giant.
Alphabet held talks last year on WIZ’s $23 billion acquisition, but negotiations collapsed after some cybersecurity company directors and investors worried about the anti-trust hurdle. The alphabet has returned with a bid of over $300 billion, people said.
Talks for the new round are ongoing and the agreement could soon be settled, the three said. The Withs acquisition ranks as one of the biggest deals of the year and could face scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission under President Donald Trump. President Donald Trump maintains guidelines that new chairman Andrew Ferguson has the ability to block the massive deals used by his predecessor, Lina Kahn.
The Alphabet did not respond to requests for comment regarding the speech. Wiz declined to comment.
Founded in 2020 by alumni of Israel’s elite Cyber Intelligence Unit and currently based in the US, Wiz provides cybersecurity services to the cloud. The company is one of the fastest growing software startups of all time, and is benefiting from a surge in sales as businesses shift their operations more and more into the cloud.
Last year, it reached $500 million in revenue metrics commonly used by startups — revenue metrics commonly used by startups — according to co-founder Roy Reznik. The group offers cloud security services to almost half of the top 100 largest companies in America, according to its website.
The alliance that may have been first reported by The Wall Street Journal is in a slower trading environment as trade policy uncertainty cooled hopes of mergers and takeover booms amid Trump’s new administration and market turmoil.
The dealers feared that a massive high-tech acquisition could be particularly challenging under the current administration.
In private, With raised $1 billion in 2022 at a $12 billion valuation from an investor group led by LightSpeed venture partner and thriving capital Andreesen Horowitz. The company is also backed by investors such as index ventures, insight partners, and G Squared, Sequoia Capital, Greenoaks, CyberStarts, and Wellington.
Wiz said he would pursue his first public offer after consultations with the Alphabet last summer.
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The Wiz acquisition is much larger than Alphabet’s previous deal. The company’s biggest deal to date has been its $12.5 billion acquisition of gadget maker Motorola Mobility. In 2022, Alphabet paid $5.4 billion to acquire cybersecurity company Mandiant to boost its Google Cloud products.
Alphabet is looking for ways to boost revenue from cloud computing services to offset its dependency on search-related ad revenue. Google Cloud is one-third of Microsoft’s Azure and leader Amazon Web Services at 21%, and is far apart by a third of global market share, with around 12% behind Microsoft’s Azure.
