Largest takeover in the company's history: Google buys security start-up for 32 billion
A company that is only five years old is to be transferred to Alphabet for a record amount. It specialises in AI-supported IT security.
Alphabet is buying the cybersecurity company Wiz for 32 billion US dollars. This was announced by Google's parent company in a press release. It is the largest acquisition in the history of the search engine giant.
Wiz is an Israeli start-up founded in 2020 and based in New York. It offers cloud-based security solutions and also counts Microsoft and Amazon among its customers. The AI-supported systems are designed to detect and prevent threats in real time. With the takeover, Google aims to strengthen its cloud business, whose sales are currently lagging behind Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure).
Second attempt after change of government
The deal only materialised on the second attempt. Wiz rejected the first offer of 23 billion US dollars last year. This was partly due to concerns that regulatory authorities could prevent the takeover. After the deal fell through, the company originally planned to go public. Its value was last estimated at around 16 billion US dollars.
Under the Trump administration, Wiz's investors now believe there is less of a threat from regulators. Alphabet also apparently increased its offer several times. Early this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported a price of 30 billion US dollars.
If the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does not prevent the purchase of Wiz, it would be more than three times the size of Google's most expensive acquisition to date: in 2012, the company paid USD 12.5 billion for Motorola Mobilities. YouTube changed hands for 1.65 billion US dollars in 2006. Even adjusted for inflation (2.6 billion US dollars), this was only around a twelfth of what Alphabet now wants to spend on Wiz.
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