Google agrees to buy Israel’s cyber unicorn Wiz for $32b, country’s biggest tech deal

Google’s parent company Alphabet agreed Tuesday to buy Israeli-founded cybersecurity unicorn Wiz in a cash deal for a staggering record $32 billion.

The deal, the largest-ever purchase of an Israeli tech company, was hailed in Israel as a sign of the country’s technological prowess and resilience during the war period.

It marks the largest deal in Israeli tech after US giant Intel Corp bought Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based developer of advanced vision and driver assistance systems, for $15.3 billion in 2017.

For Google, it is the largest acquisition the search giant has ever made, almost triple its record purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012. As part of the deal, Wiz will join Google’s Cloud division.

“From its earliest days, Google’s strong security focus has made us a leader in keeping people safe online,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, announcing the agreement. “Today, businesses and governments that run in the cloud are looking for even stronger security solutions, and greater choice in cloud computing providers.”

“Together, Google Cloud and Wiz will turbocharge improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds,” Pichai added.

Renewed takeover talks came after Wiz in July walked away from a $23 billion acquisition offer by Alphabet, partly due to concerns over the clearance of antitrust hurdles by regulatory bodies. At the time, Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport said that Wiz sought to remain an independent cybersecurity unicorn rather than being absorbed by the tech giant. The company set out a growth path to double its annual recurring revenue (ARR) to $1 billion by 2025 and was eyeing plans for an initial public offering (IPO).

In May, Wiz, which says that its cyber platform is tailored to secure everything developers build and run in the cloud, was valued at $12 billion after closing its last funding round of $1 billion.

The cybersecurity unicorn was established in early 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic started gaining pace around the world, sending entire enterprises and workers online and spurring a huge migration wave to cloud-based servers. With hybrid work now standard and digital transformation moving data centers to the cloud, businesses face heightened network security risks, including sophisticated ransomware, malware and other breaches, which in turn bolstered demand for Wiz’s cloud-based cybersecurity solutions powered by artificial intelligence.

Wiz was co-founded by Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Ami Luttwak and Roy Reznik, the same team that founded the firm Adallom, which was sold to Microsoft for $320 million in 2015. They also led Microsoft Azure’s Cloud Security Group. Its customers include 40 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, such as Slack, Mars, BMW, DocuSign, Plaid and Agoda.