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As big tech companies from Microsoft to Apple face increasing antitrust scrutiny from the Biden administration, one tech giant is eyeing a major purchase.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people with knowledge of the ongoing talks, reports that Google is looking to buy cybersecurity startup Wiz for roughly $23 billion, in what would be the tech giant’s largest acquisition to date. Despite a deal appearing to be imminent, sources told The Journal that discussions could still fall apart.
This deal would be nearly double the size of Google’s largest acquisition so far. These are the company’s biggest purchases, by the digits.
- $12.5 billion: The price tag on Google purchase of Motorola Mobility, which closed in 2012.
- $3.2 billion: Google’s payment for Nest Labs a decade ago.
- $2.1 billion: How much Google spent to buy Fitbit in 2021.
- $1.65 billion: The all-stock value of Google’s purchase of YouTube back in 2006.
Wiz, a cloud security firm based in New York, helps companies identify and target risks in their cloud infrastructure. Chief executive Assaf Rappaport founded Wiz in 2020, alongside Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak.
In May, the company announced that it raised $1 billion in a funding round that included contributions from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and a number of other Silicon Valley venture capitalists. This brought Wiz’s valuation to $12 billion. The raise was said to be path towards a potential future initial public offering (IPO), as the company said it was targeting $1 billion in revenue ahead of a possible market debut.
According to the company, it is considered the world’s fastest-growing startup. It said earlier this year that it reached $350 million annual recurring revenue last year, and provides its services to more than 40% of the Fortune 100 companies.
One month earlier, the four-year-old company acquired startup Gem Security, a competitor cloud security platform specialized in real-time detection and response to attacks on cloud infrastructure.
If Google were to acquire Wiz, it wouldn’t be its founders’ first rodeo when it comes to selling to a major player in the tech world. In 2015, Rappaport, Luttwak, and Reznik sold their first cloud security startup, Adallom, to Microsoft. They ultimately left that firm five years later to launch Wiz.