According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Google is contemplating a substantial $23 billion acquisition of Wiz, a prominent cloud cybersecurity startup based in New York City. This potential deal would mark Google’s largest acquisition to date, nearly double what it paid for Motorola Mobility in 2012.
Wiz specializes in offering “siloed security tools and scanners” designed for enterprise environments, counting Amazon and Oracle among its partners. The company’s approach involves securing corporate cloud infrastructures by establishing a standardized layer across cloud environments, facilitating swift identification and mitigation of critical risks.
The move to acquire Wiz appears strategically aimed at bolstering Google’s cloud security capabilities, particularly in light of recent vulnerabilities affecting competitors like Microsoft, which has encountered multiple significant security breaches.
Sources suggest that Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has been instrumental in driving this acquisition effort, as reported by The New York Times. If successful, the acquisition could enhance Google’s standing as a secure cloud platform, aligning with its previous investments such as the half-billion dollar purchase of another cloud security startup in 2022 and the $5.4 billion acquisition of Mandiant, notable for uncovering the SolarWinds hack.
While the deal appears likely to proceed, it still faces regulatory hurdles and could undergo scrutiny from US authorities. The Biden administration has been active in antitrust actions, including challenges like the Department of Justice’s lawsuit concerning Google’s Search arrangement with Apple and the Federal Trade Commission’s recent attempt to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.
