The largest-ever purchase of an Israeli-founded tech company on Tuesday passed a key hurdle after European antitrust regulators cleared the acquisition of cybersecurity unicorn Wiz by Alphabet’s Google for a staggering $32 billion.

The European Commission said it concluded that the Google-Wiz transaction would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area, paving the way for the completion of the deal, which is expected to inject an estimated NIS 10 billion ($3.2 billion) into Israel’s state coffers in tax proceeds. The final closure of the transaction is expected this year, pending regulatory approvals in Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and Israel.

The deal announced in March last year, amid Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, marks the largest purchase of an Israeli-founded company after US giant Intel Corp bought Mobileye, a Jerusalem-based developer of advanced vision and driver assistance systems, for $15.3 billion in 2017. For Google, it is the largest acquisition the search giant has ever made, more than double its record purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012.

As part of the deal, Wiz will join Google’s Cloud business, but remain independent. The........

© The Times of Israel