Israel’s biggest ever exit: Google buying Wiz for $32b

Google has confirmed that an agreement has been signed for an all-cash deal. Wiz will remain an independent company under Google.

Google is buying Israel cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion. In monetary terms, this is Google’s biggest ever acquisition, and the biggest ever acquisition of an Israeli company. Google has confirmed that an agreement has been signed, and states that the deal will be in cash. After the acquisition is completed, Wiz will become part of Google Cloud. “This acquisition represents an investment by Google Cloud to accelerate two large and growing trends in the AI era: improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds (multicloud).” Google stresses that Wiz’s solutions will continue to work on all leading cloud platforms. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals.

Industry sources told “Globes” that Wiz co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport would in the future head what will become “Google Security”, an independent division that will focus on cybersecurity solutions, with Wiz becoming the basis of this activity. The sources also said that, unlike in Google’s previous bid for Wiz, this time it was agreed that Wiz would remain an independent company under Google, in a model similar to that of LinkedIn under Microsoft. This means that Wiz will be able to continue to serve all the major cloud computing companies, including Google competitors such as Microsoft and Amazon. The sources added that the current move indicated Google’s strategic intention of becoming a main player in the global cybersecurity market, a critical field given the growing threats in the digital space.

“Wiz is an innovative leader and continues to deliver new products with strong adoption, fuelling rapid business growth, including over the last 12 months in which it has begun to deliver new categories of cybersecurity solutions. Google Cloud is a leader in cloud infrastructure, with deep AI expertise and a track record of industry-leading security innovation. Bringing all this to Wiz will help make their solutions even better and more scalable, benefiting customers and partners across all major clouds,” Google’s announcement states.

Wiz, which was founded in 2020 by Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica, and Roy Reznik, has since grown meteorically. The company is the developer of a cloud security platform that enables enterprises to identify vulnerabilities in their systems without the need to install software or lengthy implementation. According to Wiz, its ability to provide a comprehensive, fast, and effective security solution has generated high demand among large enterprises that use many cloud platforms, and this has enabled it to reach annual revenue of some $500 million within just a few years, to raise $1 billion from investors at a valuation of $12 billion, and to build an impressive customer base that includes Fortune 500 companies.

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