Imagine Passing on 23 Billion…

It’s tough to walk away from $23 billion… but that’s exactly what Wiz did. 

Wiz, a cybersecurity startup, turned down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google. Even though the offer far exceeded the last private valuation of Wiz, which was $12 billion. This would have been Google’s largest ever acquisition. 

The CEO of Wiz wrote a letter to all of their employees on Monday, explaining that they’d prefer to remain independent, and did not want to be taken over by Google. Instead, they plan to take the company public. 

Assaf Rappaport, the aforementioned CEO, said he hopes to get Wiz to $1 billion in annual recurring revenue, before an initial public offering. In his memo, he said, “saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice.” Of course having that offer from Google, and seeing how much they think of your company and it’s potential, can be uplifting, and inspiring in regards to your future. 

Wiz was founded in 2020 in Israel, before moving their headquarters to New York City. They currently have about 900 employees. They had been talking about an IPO as early as May, before the potential deal with Google started to come together over the past month. 

Part of the apprehension could have been the fact that one of their founders, Jyoti Bansal, has publicly said he regrets previously selling a startup to Cisco. In 2017, he sold AppDynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion, two days before the company was set to go public. Bansal believed that the move did not maximize their value. 

Wiz might now be betting on themselves, but of course… no one beats them.