Wiz Walks Away From Google’s $23 Billion Acquisition Offer 

Israeli cloud security startup Wiz has turned down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Google, the largest in the tech giant’s history. 

Wiz analyzes infrastructure hosted in public cloud services for risk factors that could allow hackers to gain control of assets and obtain sensitive customer data.

In an email to staff obtained by Forbes, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport says that the company had decided to stick to its original target of consistent annual revenue of $1 billion and an eventual IPO of its own. 

“I know the last week has been intense, with the buzz about a potential acquisition. While we are flattered by offers we have received, we have chosen to continue on our path to building Wiz,” Rappaport said in the email.

Today headquartered in New York, Wiz was founded in Tel Aviv in 2020 by Rappaport, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP Product Yinon Costica and VP R&D Roy Reznik.   

Wiz said last year it had become the world’s largest cybersecurity unicorn, a company valued at $1 billion or more, and the fastest Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company to achieve a $10 billion valuation – making it a decacorn.

In May, it announced that it had closed a new funding round of $1 billion, based on a $12 billion valuation. The round brought Wiz’s overall funding to $1.9 billion.  

Had the sale gone through, it would have been Google’s costliest acquisition and the largest in Israeli history, following the 2017 sale of autonomous vehicle firm Mobileye to Intel for $15 billion. It would also have been Google’s second major acquisition of an Israeli tech company, having bought traffic navigation app Waze in 2013 for $1.1 billion.