Google set to acquire Israeli cloud start-up Alooma

Deal reportedly at $150m. • Firm seeks greater share of market dominated by Amazon, Microsoft

Google intends to acquire Israeli data migration start-up Alooma, the companies announced late on Tuesday, in a deal said to be worth $150 million.

Google said that acquiring the company would be critical for building additional data migration capabilities as it seeks to capture a greater share of the cloud market, which is currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

“Here at Google Cloud, we’re committed to helping enterprise customers easily and securely migrate their data to our platform,” said senior representatives of the California-based technology giant in a statement.

“The addition of Alooma, subject to closing conditions, is a natural fit that allows us to offer customers a streamlined, automated migration experience to Google Cloud.”

While the value of the acquisition has not been made public yet, industry sources have reported that Google will pay $150m. for the company.

Alooma, co-founded by Yoni Broyde and Yair Weinberger, provides an enterprise-targeted cloud solution that enables companies to integrate, enrich and stream data from various sources to any data warehouse or application.

“From the very beginning we’ve been humbled to serve thousands of customers and partners, and are grateful for the trust they’ve placed in us,” said Broyde and Weinberger in a joint statement.

“We believe that as part of Google Cloud – bringing together the bestin-class data migration and integration services – we can make our customers and partners even more data driven and successful.”

Since its establishment in 2013, Alooma has raised $14.7m. in capital funding to accelerate its activities. The company has offices in Tel Aviv and in Redwood City, California.

According to the market analyst firm Canalys, Google Cloud’s market share grew to 9% for the first time in the final quarter of 2018. Despite the increase, it still trails significantly behind AWS, which boasted a 32% share of customer expenditure, and Microsoft Azure, who saw market share grow from 14% to 16%.

By acquiring Alooma, Google has said that it is also looking forward to adding to its growing cloud footprint in Israel. Last year, the company acquired another Israeli cloud migration start-up, Velostrata, for an undisclosed sum.