Google’s parent company, Alphabet signed a $32 billion agreement to acquire Wiz, a New York-based cloud security startup, the companies confirmed on Tuesday. If the regulators clear the acquisition, this will be the largest ever acquisition for Alphabet on record, improving its cloud security offering in a world of advancing artificial intelligence and cybersecurity threats.
Google aims to close the deal by 2026, following which, Wiz would become a part of the company’s cloud business.
READ: Google partners with Taiwanese MediaTek, bolsters in-house chip investments (March 18, 2025)
“Google Cloud is a leader in cloud infrastructure, with deep AI expertise and a track record of industry-leading security innovation,” Google said in a release. “Bringing all this to Wiz will help make their solutions even better and more scalable, benefiting customers and partners across all major clouds.”
On Thursday, a Bloomberg report revealed that investment firm Insight Partners is set to gain approximately $2.7 billion in the Alphabet-Wiz acquisition deal as the firm holds an estimated 8% stake in Wiz through various funds including its public equities vehicle. The amount Insight Partners might reap is nearly 15.5 times its initial investment, the report said.
CNBC reported in July 2024 that Wiz had previously walked away from a potential $23 billion acquisition by Google, and announced that it would pursue an initial public offering (IPO) instead. A source familiar to CNBC also mentioned Wiz walked away from the deal in part due to antitrust and investor concerns.
“Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a standalone company,” wrote Assaf Rappaport, CEO and co-founder of Wiz, in a blog upon the announcement of Google’s acquisition.
Google Cloud is a leader in cloud infrastructure, with deep AI expertise and a track record of industry-leading security innovation. Bringing Wiz onboard would help make their solutions even better and more scalable, helping protect more organizations faster, according to Google’s statement. Wiz will remain an independent platform that will work across all cloud providers, not limited to Google Cloud platform.
“We believe that our partnership with Google will supercharge this vision and help us achieve it even faster. Wiz will keep its commitment to being a multicloud platform, collaborating closely with all major clouds, including our fantastic partners at AWS, Azure, and OCI, while continuing to grow our partner network across the industry,” Rappaport took to LinkedIn to share.
READ: Google’s AI chatbot Gemini faces accuracy concerns (December 20, 2024)
The deal will still need regulatory and other approvals before closing, which the companies expect will be in 2026. Previously, Google’s biggest acquisition had been buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2011.
Thomas Kurian, the CEO of Google Cloud said that Google Cloud and Wiz share a vision “to make cybersecurity more accessible and simpler to use for organizations of any size and industry.” He also added that enabling more companies to prevent cyberattacks, will help them “minimize the cost, disruption and hassle caused by cybersecurity incidents.”