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Wiz
CEO Assaf Rappaport said the company would now focus on an
initial public offering, as it had planned earlier, and aims to
achieve an annual recurring revenue of $1 billion.
"Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our
exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice,"
Rappaport said in the memo, referring to an acquisition offer.
Neither Alphabet nor Wiz have officially acknowledged deal
talks. The Wiz memo did not name Google or Alphabet.
Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for
comment, while Wiz declined to comment.
Reuters reported earlier this month that Alphabet was in
advanced talks to buy Wiz for roughly $23 billion, citing a
person familiar with the matter, a valuation nearly double of
what Wiz had announced in May, when it raised $1 billion in a
private funding round at a $12 billion valuation.
Wiz provides cloud-based cybersecurity solutions that help
companies identify and remove critical risks on cloud platforms,
powered by artificial intelligence.
Wiz's decision to call off the deal will be a setback for
Google, which has been investing in its cloud infrastructure and
focusing on winning clients for the cloud business that
generated more than $33 billion in revenues last year.
The fallout is a second blow for Alphabet in the M&A space in
recent times, after reports of its decision to walk away from a
deal for online marketing software company HubSpot.
Wiz would have been Alphabet's second big acquisition in the
cybersecurity space, since its $5.4 billion purchase of Mandiant
in 2022.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna, Steven Scheer, Deborah Sophia and
Shubham Kalia; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Rashmi Aich)
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