From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Report: Google’s record-breaking deal to buy Israeli-founded cyber startup Wiz falls apart
A potential record-breaking deal for Google to purchase Israeli-founded cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23 billion has fallen apart, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The outlet says that in an email, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport told staff that the company would be instead pursuing an IPO.
“Wizards, I know the last week has been intense, with the buzz about a potential acquisition,” he writes to employees the newspaper reports. “While we are flattered by offers we have received, we have chosen to continue on our path to building Wiz.”
Rappaport says the company plans to reach $1 billion in annual recurring revenue ahead of the IPO.
A source tells the newspaper that Wiz aims to hit that target within the next year and the IPO in the coming years.
A deal with Google would have brought intense antitrust scrutiny, the Journal notes. Google is already awaiting a verdict in a separate US Justice Department suit.
Wiz was co-founded in early 2020 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.
After its latest private funding round announced in May, in which it raised $1 billion, the company was valued at $12 billion.
