Google has announced its decision to acquire rapidly growing cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion, making it the tech giant’s largest acquisition to date.
This all-cash deal reflects Google’s significant investment in cloud security and cybersecurity, particularly in the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence. The acquisition is still subject to regulatory approval.
The purchase of Wiz easily exceeds Google’s previous largest acquisition, the 2012 purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a deal that ultimately ended in a loss for Google after it later sold the company.
Wiz, which provides cybersecurity software for cloud computing, had been in talks to sell to Google last summer for about $23 billion, but the two companies couldn’t finalize the deal. Wiz had then planned to focus on an initial public offering instead.
Founded just five years ago by Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica, and Roy Reznik, all of whom met during their service in Unit 8200, the cyber intelligence division of the Israel Defense Forces, Wiz has experienced rapid growth.
Rappaport emphasized the urgency of advancing in cybersecurity, stating in a Wiz blog post, “Wiz has achieved so much in a relatively short period, but cybersecurity moves at warp speed and so must we. The time is now.”
The $32 billion acquisition of Wiz by Google ranks as the seventh-largest takeover of a private U.S. company, according to Dealogic.
On Wall Street, some analysts are hopeful that this deal will signal the beginning of a recovery in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), which have slowed recently due to volatility in financial markets and declining CEO confidence.
The renewed discussions and agreement to buy Wiz follow the departure of Biden-era antitrust regulators who had taken a stringent stance on large mergers. Under former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan, numerous transactions were blocked on antitrust grounds.
“With Lina Khan gone at the FTC…the M&A engines are back underway in Big Tech,” wrote Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, in a note to clients on Tuesday.
Some Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, had supported Khan’s aggressive antitrust approach. Last year, Vance praised Khan as “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.”