It’s hard to ignore when tech giant Google announces the biggest acquisition in its history.
The fact that the acquired company – Wiz – was only founded in 2020 and has just been bought for an eye-watering $32bn makes it even more newsworthy.
Wiz, which had only turned down a $23bn approach from Google in 2024, opened its European office in London last year and has secured a number of UK customers.
The deal also represents the largest-ever purchase of an Israeli-founded tech company and highlights the importance of cloud security, especially in an AI world.
Billionaires
Wiz was co-founded in 2020 by Assaf Rappaport (pictured), Ami Luttwak, London-based Roy Reznik and Yinon Costica – all reported now to be billionaires – but the story starts before then
The four had previously founded the successful cloud access security broker company, Adallom, before its acquisition by Microsoft in July 2015.
The vision from the start for Wiz was simple: To address the unique security challenges faced by organisations operating in the cloud.
In explaining the Google deal Rappaport wrote: “Five years ago, my fellow co-founders and I set out to create something security and development teams would love.
“We embarked on a significant mission: to help every organisation secure everything they build and run in the cloud – any cloud.
“Our journey to create a platform that both security and development teams love has been shaped by listening to our customers. Their challenges inspire us to develop innovative cybersecurity solutions, and they trust us to support their cloud journey. Every day, we strive to earn and uphold that trust.”
Rappaport, who describes himself on Instagram as ‘founder of the fastest unicorn’ is a former captain of the elite 8200 intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces.
In his earlier business career, Assaf managed several strategy-focused projects in Israel and Australia while working for McKinsey & Company.
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Following the sale of Adallom he led the cloud security group at Microsoft and served as the general manager of Microsoft Israel’s R&D centre.
Under his leadership, Microsoft Israel was named Israel’s best place to work two years in a row under his leadership.
Ami Luttwak is the chief technology officer at Wiz and held a similar role at Adallom. Before then he served as an R&D team leader and group architect in the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces.
Roy Reznik is vice president of R&D at Wiz, having held the same role at Adallom. Reznik served as an officer and R&D leader in the Intelligence Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, and he is a graduate of the Israel Defense Forces’ most prestigious software and security program.
Wiz’s final co-founder is Yinon Costica, vice president of product. Costica is a veteran of the elite 8200 intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces, where he headed a cyber division and was awarded the Israel Secretary of Defense award for excellence.
Within 18 months of its launch, Wiz hit $100m ARR– making it the fastest software company to achieve the feat.
At the heart of its product is the Wiz Security Graph, which it describes as a game-changer for cloud security.
Rather than a long list of contextless alerts, Wiz identifies, correlates, and prioritises risk across all layers – network, identity, secrets, workloads – and then puts it on the graph.
This provides context that both cloud builders and cloud defenders need to focus on risk that matters.
Last year Wiz reportedly rebuffed Google’s $23bn because it wanted to hit $1bn in revenue first.
Why are Google paying an extra $9bn?
So why now and why did Google raise the offer by another $9bn?
Casey Copeland, managing director of Copeland Ventures, said: “It’s all about the skyrocketing importance of cloud security. With businesses migrating to multi-cloud environments and cyberattacks becoming increasingly sophisticated, Google’s strategic play makes perfect sense.”
Fola Alabi added: “Wiz did not just build another tech company. They built a solution so powerful that Google could not ignore it.”
But not everyone is happy. Kyle Hanslovan, CEO and co-founder of Huntress, said: “I’m frankly bummed to see another innovative company of consequence fail to stay independent. There’s no doubt the state of the current economy played a role in this acquisition.”
However, Rappaport said it was the right time for Wiz to join Google Cloud.
“Wiz and Google Cloud are both fuelled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratised, so more organisations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely,” he said.
The time is now
“Wiz has achieved so much in a relatively short period, but cybersecurity moves at warp speed and so must we. The time is now.
“Cloud is more important than ever, and attackers aren’t slowing down. They are already using the most innovative technologies to move faster. We see it as our mission to do whatever we can to accelerate the Wiz vision, and we truly believe this announcement will enable us to do so.”
This acquisition represents an investment by Google Cloud to accelerate two large and growing trends in the AI era: improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.
Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said: “Together, Google Cloud and Wiz will turbocharge improved cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.”