Unnamed sources said the Google owner is in advanced talks to buy the four-year-old company, and a deal is imminent if talks don’t fall apart.
Wiz would be Google’s largest acquisition, worth more than double the $12.5 billion it paid for Motorola Mobility in 2011.
Alphabet has traditionally been cautious about large acquisitions. Its $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness company FitBit in 2021 previously faced regulatory scrutiny before being approved.
Wiz was founded in March 2020 byAssaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica, and Roy Reznik, and offers security for companies that use cloud computing providers such as Amazon Web Services.
In less than a year, Wiz was valued at $1.7 billion and won investment from Salesforce, Blackstone, and Algae, making it one of the fastest-growing startups at the time, BI previously reported.
The company was established in Israel but moved its headquarters from Tel Aviv to New York City amid big growth.
Wiz employed about 900 people across the US, Europe, and Israel as of February 2024.
Rappaport is CEO, while Luttwak is the CTO. Fellow cofounders Costica and Reznik are the VPs of product and research and development, respectively.
The four cofounders first met in an elite intelligence unit of the IDF during Israel’s mandatory military service. Rappaport spent two years at consulting giant McKinsey after his time in the Israeli military.
Google recently abandoned efforts to buy HubSpot, a maker of customer relations management software, Bloomberg reported.
Google and Wiz did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
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