Google has officially completed its acquisition of Israeli-American security company Wiz. The purchase price is an impressive 32 billion US dollars, the equivalent of almost 28 billion euros.
It is the largest takeover in the history of the tech group and its parent company Alphabet. The company announced the completion of the deal this week.
As heise.de reports, Google describes the acquisition as an investment to improve cloud security. Wiz’s products will remain available for all major cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
Wiz once rejected 23 billion
It wasn’t the first attempt at this takeover. Google and Wiz were already negotiating with each other in 2024, but at that time the startup rejected an offer of $23 billion.
Google then followed up and offered $30 billion last year. In the end, both sides agreed on 32 billion, an increase of almost 10 billion compared to the first offer.
Critics warn of possible risks
Although the EU Commission gave the green light and does not see any harm to competition, market observers warn against this. Deeper integration could make customers more loyal to Google.
Google has already invested heavily in security companies in the past. In 2022, the group took over the IT security company Mandiant for $5.4 billion.