Tech mega-acquisitions are growing increasingly rare these days, but that isn’t stopping Google from chasing after a company that… we’ve never heard of before?
Driving the news: Google parent Alphabet is reportedly honing in on its priciest acquisition ever as it looks to buy cybersecurity firm Wiz for ~US$23 billion. If the deal gets done — and clears the inevitable antitrust hurdles — it’ll be the biggest tech exit since November 2021.
Catch-up: Wiz doesn’t make artificial cheese spread or chart-topping Afro-pop hits. Instead, it offers technology that spots security risks in cloud storage hubs. Since launching in 2020, the company has exploded as businesses rapidly shifted everything to the cloud.
- The company has fared way better than other pandemic pet projects. It has 40% of the Fortune 500 as clients and did $350 million in annual recurring revenue last year.
Why it matters: The ongoing AI arms race has fuelled a complimentary cloud arms race, as tech giants jockey for dominance in the sector as they try to diversify revenue streams. In adding this vaunted security service, Google looks to catch up to Microsoft and Amazon.
Zoom out: Cloud security is currently top of mind as the fallout from a series of data leaks which affected Ticketmaster, AT&T, and others continues to roil the corporate world.—QH