Google is apparently considering its largest startup purchase ever

Google plans to spend $23 billion to buy Wiz, a cloud cybersecurity startup whose partners include Amazon and Oracle, the Wall Street Journal reports. That's almost double what Google spent on Motorola Mobility in 2012. It would be the most Google has ever paid for another company. According to the company, the New York City Wiz offers “tools and safety scanners and security scanners” for corporate space. Wiz writes that it provides corporate cloud infrastructure “by creating a normalizing layer between cloud media”, allowing enterprises to “quickly identify and eliminate critical risks”. The purchase of such a company is especially aimed at an increasingly vulnerable Microsoft, which recently withstood several high -profile security disorders.

The acquisition attempt was driven by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, according to The New York Times, and if successful, could help bolster Google's reputation as a secure cloud platform. That appears to be the idea behind the company's $500 million acquisition of another cloud security startup in 2022 and its $5.4 billion purchase of Mandiant, which exposed the SolarWinds hack later that year.

The deal "seems likely," the paper said, but could fall apart and expose it to criticism from U.S. regulators. The Biden administration has led key antitrust cases, including the Justice Department's case over Google Search's contract with Apple and the Federal Trade Commission's failed attempt to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision.