Google Closes $32 Billion Wiz Deal, Making Cloud Security a Centerpiece of Its AI Push

Alphabet’s Google has closed its largest acquisition ever, completing a $32 billion cash purchase of cloud-security startup Wiz and folding the fast-growing company into Google Cloud as a flagship part of its security and artificial intelligence strategy.

A record deal after a long review

The deal’s completion, announced March 11 in a Google company blog post, caps a year-long regulatory review in the United States, Europe and other jurisdictions. It gives Google control of one of the most prominent independent providers of security tools for companies running software across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and other platforms.

For Google, the acquisition is designed to strengthen its position in the global cloud market by turning security into a selling point against larger rivals. For regulators and competitors, it raises questions about how much critical cybersecurity infrastructure should sit inside the same handful of companies that run most of the world’s cloud computing.

“By bringing Wiz and Google Cloud together, we’re making it easier for organizations to innovate with confidence,” Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google and parent company Alphabet, said in the closing announcement. Thomas Kurian, chief executive of Google Cloud, said the goal is to build a “unified security platform” that can protect customers’ data and applications across “multicloud environments in the AI era.”

The price tag, and why Google paid up

The acquisition price, first disclosed when Google and Wiz signed a definitive agreement on March 18, 2025, is the richest in Alphabet’s history. It surpasses Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2012 and is widely described by analysts and industry publications as the largest cybersecurity deal ever. It also represents the biggest exit to date for an Israeli-founded technology company, underscoring the country’s status as a major source of cybersecurity startups.

Wiz was founded in 2020 by Assaf Rappaport and three other veterans of Israel’s Unit 8200 intelligence unit, who had previously sold their earlier security startup, Adallom, to Microsoft. The company built what is known as a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that connects to a customer’s cloud accounts through programming interfaces and then maps the company’s infrastructure, data and user permissions to spot risky combinations that attackers might exploit.

The product is deliberately designed to be agentless—requiring no software to be installed on individual servers—and to work across multiple cloud providers. Wiz says its platform is used by about half of the Fortune 100, including Shell, BMW, LVMH, Morgan Stanley and Salesforce.

That customer list translated into rapid growth. Wiz said it reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue in roughly 18 months, and industry reports put its revenue at more than $350 million in 2023. By the time the deal with Google was announced, people familiar with the company’s finances and several trade publications estimated its recurring revenue at more than $700 million, with internal targets to reach $1 billion in 2025.

The $32 billion purchase price implies a valuation of roughly 30 to 45 times those revenue figures, a multiple that stands out even in a sector known for premium pricing on fast-growing software businesses. Alphabet, which has held more than $90 billion in cash and marketable securities in recent years, chose to finance the transaction entirely in cash.

Google and Wiz had previously discussed a sale in 2024 at a lower price, around $23 billion, according to people briefed on those talks. Those negotiations fell apart amid concerns about regulatory delays and Wiz’s desire to pursue an eventual public offering. The renewed agreement at a higher valuation a year later reflects both Wiz’s continued growth and Google’s decision to pay up for an asset it now presents as central to its cloud and AI ambitions.

Regulators clear the acquisition

The acquisition required antitrust and merger control approvals in multiple jurisdictions. In the United States, the Department of Justice reviewed the transaction and allowed it to proceed without filing a lawsuit or imposing formal conditions. In the European Union, the European Commission examined the deal under its merger rules as Case M.11964 and issued an unconditional clearance after an initial Phase I investigation.

In its decision, the Commission concluded that even if Google were to bundle Wiz with its own cloud services or make Wiz’s tools work less well with rival platforms, enterprises would continue to have “credible alternatives” in both cloud providers and independent security vendors. It pointed to competing services from Amazon and Microsoft, as well as products offered by companies such as Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike, in finding that the deal would not significantly reduce competition.

That conclusion drew criticism from some advocacy groups focused on competition and technology markets. The Open Markets Institute and several European organizations issued a joint statement condemning the approval, arguing that letting a “gatekeeper” under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act buy a key multi-cloud security provider would deepen concentration in both cloud infrastructure and cloud security. They said authorities had underestimated the long-term risks of placing more of the security layer of the internet inside a small number of global technology platforms.

Google, for its part, has emphasized that Wiz will remain available across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud, and that it will keep its own brand. “Wiz products will continue to work and be available across all major clouds,” Kurian wrote in the closing announcement, calling multi-cloud support “core to how customers use Wiz today.”

What it means for cloud security—and for Israel’s tech sector

The acquisition intensifies competition in a cloud-security market that has already been consolidating. Palo Alto Networks, which sells its Prisma Cloud platform, holds the largest share of revenue in CNAPP tools, according to industry analysts, and has itself acquired several startups in areas such as data security. CrowdStrike has been expanding its Falcon platform from endpoint protection into cloud and identity security, and its chief executive, George Kurtz, has cited the Google–Wiz deal as evidence of an industry shift toward consolidated security platforms.

Analysts expect the Wiz acquisition to spur further mergers as large security vendors, and possibly other cloud providers, look to match Google’s capabilities. For enterprise technology buyers, the near-term effect could be more aggressive bundling and discounting as providers pitch end-to-end platforms. Over the longer term, chief information security officers will have to weigh the benefits of tighter integration against the risk of relying on fewer, larger suppliers.

The deal is also reshaping Israel’s technology ecosystem. Wiz’s sale, at a valuation more than double its last private funding round, delivers a windfall to founders, employees and a roster of global investors that includes Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures and LVMH-backed Aglaé Ventures. Industry observers expect some of that capital to cycle back into new startups and venture funds, reinforcing Israel’s role as a hub for enterprise security software.

Google has said it plans to keep Wiz’s operations in Israel and to make the country a strategic center for its cloud security research and development. That would add to the presence of other multinational technology companies that have established cybersecurity labs and engineering campuses in the country.

An AI-era security bet

Beyond the financial and strategic stakes, both Google and Wiz have framed the combination as a response to emerging risks from artificial intelligence. The companies say attackers are beginning to use AI to automate reconnaissance and exploitation, while organizations are exposing new attack surfaces as they deploy large language models and other AI systems that rely on sensitive training data and cloud infrastructure.

Pichai said the acquisition would help customers “better protect their data, applications and AI systems,” pairing Wiz’s visibility into cloud environments with Google’s threat intelligence and AI models. How well that promise holds up will depend on whether Wiz retains its multi-cloud role and whether the combined platform can help organizations reduce breaches and misconfigurations that continue to drive many high-profile incidents.

Regulators, customers and competitors will be watching closely. Over the next several years, the success of the deal is likely to be measured not only by whether Google Cloud gains market share, but also by whether enterprises feel more secure entrusting both their infrastructure and their defenses to the same provider—and whether authorities decide to take a tougher line on similar Big Tech acquisitions in AI and security.