About a week ago, we noted that social mapping company Waze was getting big. Actually, with over 2 million drivers helping them map the planet, and over 250 million kilometers logged, they’re already really big. And today investors are putting their money where the miles are as the company has just raised a $25 million Series B round of funding.
The large second round is being led by existing investors Blue Run Ventures, with other existing investors, Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Venture Capital taking part. The round also includes new strategic investors including Qualcomm Ventures. It’s a very nice round for the company, that they want to make very clear to us puts them roughly on part with Twitter in terms of funding at this stage.
Actually, they look to be past where Twitter was at this point (Twitter’s Series B was a “mere” $15 million).
So, what will all this money be used for? Obviously, hiring more employees, but also new marketing initiatives, the company says. And given their growth, they’re going to put quite a bit of money into their infrastructure so that they can continue to scale.
They’re also officially moving their headquarters from Tel Aviv to Palo Alto. “Waze has been focusing on social interactions and real time data and we need to grow our team here, and fast,” they tell us.
And so the journey forward continues in America.