Cybersecurity
Wiz Rejects Google’s $23 Billion Offer, Seeks IPO Instead
- CEO announced rejection of takeover bids in employee memo
- Firm’s next milestones are reaching $1 billion ARR and IPO
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Cybersecurity startup Wiz Inc. has turned down a takeover bid of as much as $23 billion from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, sticking instead with a plan for an initial public offering.
The rejection will come as a blow to Google, which is trying to catch up with Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. in an intensely competitive cloud services market. Google, which bought cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion just two years ago in its second-largest acquisition, could have used Wiz to round out its security offerings. The New York-based startup connects to cloud storage providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and scans data stored there for security risks.