Alphabet's reported $23B bet on Wiz fizzles out

On the day of Alphabet's Q2 earnings call, cybersecurity firm Wiz has walked from a $23 billion takeover bid by Google's parent company.

The potential deal was widely reported earlier this month and would have represented the largest sum Alphabet had paid for a target. However, according to a memo from Wiz boss Assaf Rappaport, the negotiations are off, and the company is instead aiming at $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and an initial public offering (IPO).

Rappaport said: "Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice."

While the deal was reported, it was not confirmed, and there is every chance that regulatory pressure could have scuppered it or at least resulted in some lengthy delays. Google has already come under antitrust scrutiny over its dominance in the search arena. Wiz would have been slotted into the Google Cloud unit.

In 2022, Google acquired threat intel and incident response giant Mandiant for a cool $5.4 billion. Small change compared to what it was alleged to have been willing to pay for Wiz.

Regulators have been baring their teeth when it comes to big tech takeovers. Adobe dropped its $20 billion Figma takeover at the end of 2023 in response to pressure from watchdogs in Europe, the UK, and US. That said, Broadcom eventually secured a takeover of VMware, and things have been going swimmingly ever since.

Wiz was founded in Israel but moved its headquarters to New York. In May, the cloud security startup was valued at $12 billion after raising $1 billion in investment, which analysts at the time described as "the biggest cybersecurity round of the year thus far."

According to Crunchbase, Wiz has scored a total of $1.9 billion in funding. The company has also been on its own acquisition spree, picking up Gem Security earlier in the year.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in May, Rappaport said he expected 2024 to be a year of consolidation in the cybersecurity world.

That consolidation does not appear to include Wiz huddling under Alphabet's umbrella. ®