Its parent company Alphabet announced the end of negotiations with the cybersecurity startup, one of the growing markets
Google has reached a “definitive agreement” to acquire the cybersecurity company Wiz for $32.000 billion, according to a statement released Tuesday.
Wiz, Inc. Adallom is an Israeli cloud security startup based in New York City. The company was founded in January 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak, all of whom previously founded Adallom. Rappaport is CEO, Costica is VP of Product, Reznik is VP of Engineering, and Luttwak is CTO. The company's platform analyzes computing infrastructure hosted on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Oracle Cloud. Infrastructure and Kubernetes for combinations of risk factors that could allow malicious actors to gain control of cloud resources and/or exfiltrate valuable data.
This is the most important acquisition made so far by Google and its parent company. A, which is strengthening its position in the field of computer security, considered a growing market.
The agreement, entirely in cash, will boost the presence of A in the cloud computing market, a sector currently led by Amazon and Microsoft. Once the transaction closes, the company says Wiz will join Google Cloud.
"Today, businesses and governments operating in the cloud are looking for even stronger security solutions and a wider choice of cloud computing providers., Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in a statement Tuesday, adding that Google Cloud and Wiz will “power enhanced cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds” together.
Wiz, a four-year-old startup based in New York, creates security tools designed to protect information stored in remote data centers from intruders.
Google has long been interested in Wiz. The purchase price announced Tuesday exceeds the $23.000 billion acquisition proposal Wiz rejected last July.
The proposed acquisition will be subject to close scrutiny by antitrust regulators. While many expect the Trump administration to be more receptive to trade deals, it has also been skeptical of Big Tech.
In addition, the new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, has committed to maintaining a rigorous review process for mergers and acquisitions.
In this way, as he anticipated 'The Wall Street Journal', the Mountain View giant has reportedly renewed its interest in acquiring the cybersecurity startup, after holding talks to acquire it for around $23.000 billion (€21.098 billion) last year, although these ultimately fell through due to concerns about antitrust hurdles.
In this regard, according to sources consulted by the leading City newspaper, the new round of negotiations for an agreement is underway and could be concluded soon.
The potential acquisition of Wiz would be one of the biggest deals of the year and would likely continue to be subject to scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), whose new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, has maintained the guidelines that give the agency the ability to block large deals, used by his predecessor, Lina Khan.
Wiz, which was last valued at $12.000 billion (more than €11.000 billion), is backed by venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital.
If the transaction closes at the published figures, it would be the largest acquisition ever made by Alphabet, whose largest purchase to date was Motorola. Mobility for $12.500 billion (€11.466 billion). In 2022, Alphabet paid $5.400 billion (€4.953 billion) for the cybersecurity company Mandiant.
(With information from AFP, AP and Europa Press)
Source: INFOBAE and Wikipedia