Good things come to those who wait. Waze, which turned down a billion dollar offer to be acquired by Facebook ten days ago, because
Facebook wanted to move the company out of Israel, will apparently now be
acquired by Google for $1.3 billion.
Sources inform ''Globes'' that Google Inc. will acquire Waze for $1.3
billion. The acquisition of the Israeli navigation app and traffic
report start-up will be completed after months of reports that Waze
would be sold to either Google or Facebook Inc.
Ra'anana-based Waze has almost 50 million users. This is a big number
for an Israeli company, which probably helped it achieve the hoped-for
exit.
Reports about a possible sale of Waze are not new. Last year there
were reports Apple wanted to buy Waze and in late August 2012, it was
reported that Facebook was in talks to acquire the company. According to
some reports, Facebook representatives arrived in Israel to meet Waze
executives, but no deal was reached in the negotiations, apparently
because of the price tag.
Another reason was that Waze insisted
that its Israeli employees should continue working in Israel, which
Facebook did not accept. Google has already made two acquisitions in
Israel, and it has an office here, in contrast to Facebook, which closed
most of the companies it acquired, including Israeli start-ups. Both
previous Israeli acquisitions by Google were modest. Google acquired
personalized Website gadget developer Labpixies for $25 million and
interactive video-clip developer Quiksee for $10 million. Both
acquisitions were in 2010.
...
Waze was founded in 2009 and in October 2012, it announced a $30
million financing round from Horizons Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield
& Byers, and iFund. The company has raised $67 million to date from
Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, Qualcomm Ventures,
BlueRun Ventures, Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), and the
investors in its 2012 financing round. The deal will turn some Waze
founders into multimillionaires. CTO Ehud Shabtai will earn $78 million,
president Uri Levine will earn $38 million, VP R&D Amir Shinar and
his brother Gili will earn $65 million.
Waze told "Globes" "no comment," and Google said, "We don't relate to rumors and speculation."
Those of you who really want to boycott Israel should not use Waze. And if you think you have the next Waze, please call me. I'd be interested in representing you.
Hmm. Is there a list of this financing round somewhere? Any US public financing (or groups who have received US public financing and may be passing it though under another name besides "US Taxpayer")?
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