Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google LLC, is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Israeli cloud security firm Wiz Inc. for around $30 billion.

The Wall Street Journal, referencing people familiar with the matter, claims that the deal could “come together soon,” barring any last-minute snags, such as those that have previously killed off previous talks between the company.

In a case of deja vu, those previous talks refer to reports from July 14 last year, when Alphabet was reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Wiz for $23 billion. Later the same month, it was then reported that Wiz had ended the talks. Wiz Chief Executive Officer Assaf Rappaport (pictured, second from left) was quoted as writing in an internal memo that “saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice.”

The main thing that seems to have changed some eight months later is the price Alphabet is willing to offer; $30 billion is seemingly more appealing to Wiz’s executive team and investors than the $23 billion previously offered. The additional money may have also helped with investor concern, as the Journal reports that one of the reasons talks failed last time was due to concerns over the time it would take for any deal to clear regulatory hurdles.

Wiz was founded in 2020 by Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, Yinon Costica and Roy Reznik (pictured), former leads of Microsoft’s Cloud Security Group and the founding team of Adallo Inc., a cybersecurity startup acquired by Microsoft for $320 million in 2015.

The company offers a software platform designed to help companies detect vulnerabilities and malicious activity in their cloud setup across networks, identity, compute, applications and secrets. Wiz’s platform presents all relevant information in one place at any scale to deliver quicker insights and informed decision-making.

Other features of Wiz’s platform include vulnerability ranking through a risk-weighted view, allowing users to assess vulnerabilities and misconfigurations based on severity, exposure, exploitability, blast radius and business impact. The company’s platform provides support for Amazon Web Service Inc., Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Kubernetes application programming interfaces.

Coming into its acquisition, Wiz has raised $1.9 billion over seven rounds, including a round of $1 billion on a $12 billion valuation in May 2024.

The company’s rapid growth has in part been driven by acquisitions. It has acquired fellow Israeli cybersecurity startup Raftt for $40 million to $50 million in December 2023, Gem Security Inc., a cloud security startup, for a reported $350 million in April 2024, and cybersecurity startup Dazz Inc. for $450 million in November.

The $30 billion reportedly on the table would make Wiz Alphabet’s and Google’s largest acquisition and not by a little, given the previous largest acquisition by Google (now Alphabet) was Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2011. In more recent years, Google’s largest acquisition was Mandiant for $5.4 billion in 2022.

Photo: Wiz