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.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS