Google plans to acquire cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion in the search giant’s largest-ever acquisition.
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00:00As I've been talking to sources across venture capital, one question keeps coming up over and
00:04over again. Is big tech M&A back or is Wiz fundamentally a one-off? This week Google
00:10announced plans to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for a whopping 32 billion dollars. Many have
00:17described Wiz as the fastest growing cybersecurity company in history. The company has long been a
00:22private markets juggernaut and is backed by some of the biggest names in venture capital from
00:26Sequoia to Index Ventures to Cyberstarts. Over the last few years tech exits have been pretty
00:32stalled. That's IPOs and M&A. On one hand you've had former FTC chair Lena Khan who was very likely
00:37to scrutinize the deals of big tech, a traditional acquirer of startups. And on the other hand you've
00:42had geopolitical and macroeconomic pressures creating a situation where IPOs almost dried up
00:47entirely. Folks pretty unanimously tell me that they do believe startup acquisitions are more
00:53likely to get done with the limited regulatory scrutiny of the Trump administration. On the other
00:57hand I still do think there is a situation where Wiz is fundamentally a one-off. Think about it
01:02this way, other cybersecurity companies look at Wiz and all of a sudden they have higher expectations
01:07than they ever would have had before about what an exit might look like whether that's an IPO
01:12or whether it's an acquisition. Buyers aren't willing to meet those expectations so what
01:16ultimately ends up happening is Wiz is then not a bellwether but an anomaly. The Wiz acquisition
01:22could turn out to be an inflection point for tech M&A moving forward but for now at least
01:26when it comes to what it means for the broader landscape there are more questions than answers.