diff --git a/lib/manager/bazel/update.js b/lib/manager/bazel/update.js
index 54705a550979b5df016a0f9f0c87ccc732bdb794..01a4ee3624c457c854d9029e6a84fae5200aed7b 100644
--- a/lib/manager/bazel/update.js
+++ b/lib/manager/bazel/update.js
@@ -77,11 +77,16 @@ async function updateDependency(fileContent, upgrade) {
       });
     }
     logger.debug({ oldDef: upgrade.def, newDef });
-    let existingRegExStr = `${upgrade.depType}\\([^\\)]+name\\s*=\\s*"${upgrade.depName}"[^\\)]+\\)`;
+    let existingRegExStr = `${upgrade.depType}\\([^\\)]+name\\s*=\\s*"${upgrade.depName}"(.*\\n)+?\\s*\\)`;
     if (newDef.endsWith('\n')) {
       existingRegExStr += '\n';
     }
     const existingDef = new RegExp(existingRegExStr);
+    // istanbul ignore if
+    if (!fileContent.match(existingDef)) {
+      logger.info('Cannot match existing string');
+      return null;
+    }
     return fileContent.replace(existingDef, newDef);
   } catch (err) {
     logger.info({ err }, 'Error setting new bazel WORKSPACE version');