Google closed its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity company Wiz this week — the biggest acquisition in Google’s history, as well as the largest ever acquisition of a venture-backed startup.
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan, Sean O’Kane, and I were joined by Shardul Shah, a partner at Wiz’s largest shareholder Index Ventures. Shah walked us through his history with Wiz, which extends before Wiz itself — he previously backed Adallom, the startup previously founded by Wiz’s Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik.
We also asked Shah about why he thinks the company was such an appealing acquisition target, and how he responded when Wiz walked away from Google’s previous acquisition offer.
“It’s no surprise that it’s Wiz,” Shah said. “Wiz is at the center of three tailwinds: AI, cloud, and security spend.”
Read an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below. Shah kicked things off by noting, half-jokingly, that we may have been underselling things by calling the acquisition one of our deals of the week.
Shardul Shah: I think this should qualify as deal of the year or decade, not just the week. Can we change that? Thank you.
But it is really important for the industry. This is the largest venture-backed acquisition in history.
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Rebecca Bellan: Yeah, we’ll work that out in post[-production].
Shardul: And more critically, it’s no surprise that it’s Wiz. Wiz is at the center of three tailwinds: AI, cloud, and security spend. And those are central today in light of the AI era where every single workload needs to be secured. So we’re super proud that we were the largest shareholder in the company. And yes, I think it’s at least [the] deal of the month.
Rebecca: So how long has it been? When did you initially invest in Wiz? Because this is the kind of exit that I’m sure investors dream about.
Shardul: Is it six years or 16, is a question for us internally. About 10 years ago, I joined the board of Assaf, Roy, and Ami first company, Adallom. So we got a front row seat at how they make decisions, how they develop trust and how that evolved over time.
Assaf called me on my birthday when he started Wiz. And the seed round is when I joined the board.
Anthony Ha: So, we’ve tal …