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If given the green light, the deal would be the largest acquisition in Alphabet’s history
Google’s parent company Alphabet is in late-stage talks to acquire cybersecurity company Wiz for $23 billion, according to a report published on Sunday from The Wall Street Journal.
If it is completed, the deal would be the group’s largest ever deal, surpassing its previous record purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2012 for $12.5 billion.
Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the deal is still “weeks away from completion”, with some details still needing to be worked out.
Only founded in 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Wiz is a cloud security platform that provides a suite of solutions for securing cloud environments. It has quickly gained prominence in the cybersecurity landscape, with huge name customers such as Salesforce, BMW, and Mars. In May, the company had a valuation of $12 billion.
If a deal is ultimately agreed, it would face immense scrutiny from antitrust regulators, who have been cracking down on large tech companies buying startups.
This is not the first cyber security purchase that Google has made in recent years. In 2022, it acquired notably cyber defence company Mandiant for $5.4 billion.
“Cyber security is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation,” said Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia in March 2022. Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said at the time that the deal would “make a profound impact in securing the cloud, accelerating the adoption of cloud computing, and ultimately make the world safer.”
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