Google is planning its biggest startup acquisition ever

Google is considering spending $23 billion to buy Wiz, a cloud cybersecurity startup with partners including Amazon and Oracle, reports Wall Street Journal. Almost double what it spent on Motorola Mobility in 2012, it would be the highest amount Google has ever paid for another company.

New York-based Wiz offers “isolated security tools and scanners” for the enterprise space, according to the company. Wiz writes that it protects enterprise cloud infrastructure by “creating a layer of normalization across cloud environments,” allowing companies to “quickly identify and remove critical risks.” The purchase of such a company seems particularly targeted at an increasingly vulnerable-looking Microsoft, which has recently weathered several high-profile security breaches.

Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian was the driving force behind the attempted acquisition, according to To New York Times. If successful, it could help solidify Google’s reputation as a secure cloud platform. That seemed to be the idea behind the purchase of another cloud security startup for half a billion dollars in 2022 and the $5.4 billion acquisition of Mandiant, the company that discovered the SolarWinds hack later that year.

The deal “seems likely,” according to the Times, but it could fail and risk triggering reviews by US regulators. The Biden administration has presided over significant antitrust actions, including the Justice Department lawsuit over Google’s research deal with Apple and the Federal Trade Commission’s failed effort to stop Microsoft from buying Activision.

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