Welcome to the tech meme right home for Monday, July 15th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough

today. The biggest tech exit in years might be in the offing as alphabet eyes scooping up whiz the weird story of that huge

AT&T hack a new arm-powered co-pilot plus PC is maybe the most powerful yet and is India the reason Apple stock has been on the rise lately

here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

Sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that Alphabet is an advanced

talks to acquire Cybersecurity Startup Wiz for roughly 23 billion

dollars. Wiz raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation just this past May.

Quote, alphabet is eyeing the deal at a time of intense antitrust scrutiny of the

search company and other tech giants. The acquisition could also help boost

alphabet's efforts in cloud computing, an important and growing business, but one where it has

lagged behind peers. Whiz's valuation has soared since it was founded in 2020 by Chief Executive

Asaf Rappaport and several colleagues. It is one of only a few startups outside

the artificial intelligence industry to raise money at a higher valuation in 2024.

Wiz said it hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months and achieved

350 million dollars in annual recurring revenue in 2023.

The company is backed by prominent Silicon Valley

venture capitalists including Sequoia Capital, Andreson Horowitz, Index Ventures, and

LightSpeed Venture Partners. If completed, the Google deal would mark a rare exit for these investors at a time when the initial

public offering market has stalled and the antitrust environment has made startups reluctant to pursue

mergers and acquisitions.

Whiz's founders started the company after selling their first startup

Adolom to Microsoft in 2015 for $320 million.

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