Cybersecurity start-up Wiz Inc has turned down a takeover bid of as much as US$23 billion from Alphabet Inc, sticking instead with a plan for an initial public offering (IPO).
The New York-based start-up connects to cloud storage providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and scans data stored there for security risks.
The rejection would come as a blow to Alphabet, which is trying to catch up with Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc in an intensely competitive cloud services market.
Photo: Bloomberg
Alphabet, which bought cybersecurity firm Mandiant for US$5.4 billion two years ago in its second-largest acquisition, could have used Wiz to round out its security offerings.
“Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice,” Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport said in a memo to employees.
“Let me cut to the chase,” Rappaport said.
The company’s next milestones are reaching US$1 billion in annual recurring revenue and an IPO, he said.
Google has sought to build up its capabilities in cybersecurity as a key prong of its strategy to gain share in cloud computing. It still trails Amazon and Microsoft in that market, but the search giant has been gaining ground, and its cybersecurity unit reported a profit for the first time last year.
Before the takeover talks two months ago, Wiz had been rapidly expanding with acquisitions of its own, and was starting to eye an IPO.
“The market validation we have experienced following this news only reinforces our goal — creating a platform that both security and development teams love,” Rappaport said in the memo.
The company, founded in 2020, was valued at US$12 billion during a May funding round that drew investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Thrive Capital.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS