BICOM

One of the largest purchases in Israel’s history was completed yesterday when Google finalised a deal to take over Waze, an Israeli company that has developed a hugely popular traffic navigation app.

Although neither Google nor Waze would confirm the sums involved, Bloomberg reported that the deal was valued at around £700 million. However, on its’ official blog, Google confirmed the purchase describing Waze as “a great source of timely road corrections and updates.” Google also confirmed that “The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now.” Meanwhile Waze CEO Noam Bardin said in his own blog post, “We are excited about the prospect of working with the Google Maps team to enhance our search capabilities and to join them in their ongoing efforts to build the best map of the world.”

Google beat off competition from both Facebook and Apple who were rumoured to have entered negotiations to purchase Waze, which has a reported 47 million users worldwide and is the second most popular map and navigation app in Apple stores. The Waze app combines online maps with updates from other users about traffic jams, road works and accidents and Google will hope that it can help enhance its’ own Google Maps service.

Waze, which is based in Ra’anana in central Israel was only founded in 2007 and has just 107 employees. According to the terms of the deal, Google will not be able to fire any Waze workers and the entire acquisition sum will go to the company’s founders, investors and employees in cash. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Waze for “putting Israeli technology on the world map,” while Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri commented that Waze’s success brings “real pride to the State and to the technology industry.”