Google’s mother or father firm, Alphabet, has announced its largest-ever acquisition, getting into right into a deal to purchase New York-based cybersecurity agency Wiz, making it part of its Google Cloud division. That is the corporate’s second try to purchase Wiz after talks stalled final 12 months at a decrease $23 billion analysis.
Wiz is a fast-growing Israeli-founded startup that works with corporations like Microsoft and Amazon to supply cloud-based cybersecurity options. The corporate was valued at $12 billion in Might 2024, which reportedly climbed to $16 billion later within the 12 months in an fairness providing to staff, and has been working in direction of an preliminary public providing (IPO) within the months because the earlier acquisition fell by means of. Ought to the deal obtain regulatory approval, it’ll simply outsize the $12.5 billion paid by Google for Motorola Mobility in 2012.
Google is at present embroiled in two separate antitrust lawsuits with the Justice Division over its search engine and digital promoting companies. It misplaced the primary however is interesting the ruling, and a closing determination continues to be awaited on the second.
The Wiz buy can be the most recent of a number of acquisitions that Google has made lately because it makes an attempt to bolster safety for its cloud computing clients. In 2022, Google bought two cybersecurity companies — Siemplify and Mandiant — for $500 million and $5.4 billion, respectively, with the latter firm finest acknowledged for uncovering the SolarWinds hack. Including Wiz to that blend seems like a focused effort to tighten Google’s cloud protections within the face of Microsoft’s less-than-stellar cybersecurity popularity.