Google acquires cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has announced its largest-ever acquisition, entering into a deal to buy New York-based cybersecurity firm Wiz, making it a part of its Google Cloud division. This is the company’s second attempt to buy Wiz after talks stalled last year at a lower $23 billion evaluation.
Wiz is a fast-growing Israeli-founded startup that works with companies like Microsoft and Amazon to provide cloud-based cybersecurity solutions. The company was valued at $12 billion in May 2024, which reportedly climbed to $16 billion later in the year in an equity offering to employees, and has been working towards an initial public offering (IPO) in the months since the previous acquisition fell through. Should the deal receive regulatory approval, it will easily outsize the $12.5 billion paid by Google for Motorola Mobility in 2012.
“We expect this change to enable us to execute and innovate even faster,” said Wiz cofounder and CEO Assaf Rappaport in a blog post. “Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a standalone company.”
Last year’s purchase fell through after Wiz’s directors and investors were worried it would fall foul of antitrust requirements, according to the Financial Times. This deal will still face scrutiny, but Alphabet and Wiz will hope that the current US administration and new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson, will take a lighter touch. However, Ferguson has previously indicated that he still intends to be firm with big tech and is continuing an antitrust probe into Microsoft.
Perhaps to head off antitrust concerns, Google has confirmed that Wiz’s products will continue to be available across competitor cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud. “Wiz needs to remain a multicloud platform,” Rappaport adds. The Google Cloud Marketplace will also offer a selection of other security services beyond those provided by Wiz.
Google is currently embroiled in two separate antitrust lawsuits with the Justice Department over its search engine and digital advertising businesses. It lost the first but is appealing the ruling, and a final decision is still awaited on the second.
The Wiz purchase is the latest of several acquisitions that Google has made in recent years as it attempts to bolster security for its cloud computing customers. In 2022, Google purchased two cybersecurity firms — Siemplify and Mandiant — for $500 million and $5.4 billion, respectively, with the latter company best recognized for uncovering the SolarWinds hack. Adding Wiz to that mix feels like a targeted effort to tighten Google’s cloud protections in the face of Microsoft’s less-than-stellar cybersecurity reputation.
