Google's final price for picking up Waze: $966 million

Steven Loeb · July 26, 2013 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/30ec

Google has spent a total of $1.31 billion on 16 acquisitions so far this year

When Google bought Waze last month, the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, though it was rumored that the price was around $1.3 billion.

Now, we finally have the real number. While it's not quite as big as some thought, its still a hefty price to pay for a start up.

Google paid a total of $966 million to buy up the navigation app, it was revealed in a financial quarterly report on Thursday.

"In June 2013, we completed our acquisition of Waze Limited (Waze), a provider of a mobile map application which provides turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic updates powered by incidents and route information submitted by a community of users, for a total cash consideration of $966 million," the report says. 

"The acquisition is expected to enhance our customer's user experience by offering real time traffic information to users' daily navigation needs."

Of that $966 million, $847 was spent on goodwill, while $188 million was spent on "intangible assets." $69 million was taken off the price for "other net liabilities assumed."

Waze, which was founded in 2007 in Israel, is a navigation app with a crowd-sourcing twist: it encourages drivers to get into their cars and share driving conditions and experiences with other members of the online community. In return, Waze provides real-time information on the circulation and short-cuts, while making suggestions for stops along the way

The app has almost 50 million users and the company has raised $67 million, most recently $30 million in growth funding in October 2011, led by Horizons Ventures Hong Kong, which manages the private venture investments of Li Ka Shing in the technology sector, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Digital Growth Fund and iFund.

As per the deal, Waze will be remain in Israel and operate separately from Google, at least for the time being.

The report also noted that, in the first six months of 2013, Google completed a total of 15 other deals on top of its Waze acquisition, spending $344 million.

Those purchases included e-commerce firm Channel Intelligence for $125 million, personalized news serviceWavii, infrasturture startup Talaria, object recognition startup DNNresearch and social and behavioral sensing company Behavio.  

Of the $344 million spent, $201 million was spent on intangible assets, $148 million on goodwill, and $5 million on net liabilities assumed.

"These acquisitions generally enhance the breadth and depth of our expertise in engineering and other functional areas, our technologies, and our product offerings," Google said.

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