People who are familiar with the matter about Waze, when told Bloomberg that it is going to manage the “expression of interest” through multiple parties, here’s some more news that you will definitely be interested in. It is planning to target a selling price of about $1 billion. The firm is also planning to finance a venture capital in order to stay independent and to function independently. Reports that came out in the beginning of May claimed that Facebook is planning to pick up Waze. It was rather in the talks that this purchase will position the famous social networking site ‘Facebook’ to enter in to the market led by Google Maps.
Facebook is said to bid in $1 billion but after this bid was chattered, Waze was then approached by Google. This news went out in the public and it was suggested that the tech monolith is planning to block Facebook from taking an entry in the mapping game. Publications say that the deal is only talked about and has not yet reached about. The user base of Waze is not that substantial that will raise funds privately. Statistics till April shows a count of about 40 million people who are using the service of Waze.
It was also rumored that Apple is interested in buying the startup in order to bolster the app named iOS Map. However these were simply rumors and the claim ultimately turned out to be false. As for the existing investors Waze, reports say that the company has managed to raise funds of about $30 million in the year 2011. The funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and horizons and Bayers ventures in Hong Kong. It is also said that Microsoft is going to be one of the investors.
Besides Microsoft the investors are vertex venture capital, Blue Run venture and Magma Venture partners. The App store allows you to download the iOS app for free. It features a functionality of reporting traffic data automatically. Some of the social aspects include a feature of real time routing and is community generated. It also includes the accident reporting system and also live maps. Besides all this it also has some of the additional features to navigate.