Qualcomm Ventures has secured a 10 times return from the sale of US-based social traffic and navigation application Waze, which was sold to US-based technology company Google on Tuesday.
The corporate venturing unit of US-based semiconductor company Qualcomm was one of the early backers of the company, which news provider Reuters said had been sold for $1.3bn, although terms were undisclosed.
Nagraj Kashyap, managing director of Qualcomm Ventures, said by e-mail: “We were early investors in Waze (Series B) and generated a 10 times return.” The deal is the second big multiple return for Qualcomm Ventures this year. In March, JDSU, a Nasdaq-listed networks company, acquired Arieso, a UK-based provider of location-aware software for mobile carriers backed by Qualcomm Ventures, for $85m in cash. This reportedly generated a 4.7x return, according to news provider PE Hub, which Miles Kirby, head of Europe at Qualcomm Ventures, by email said: “was a good return but not 8x”.
Before the exit, Waze had been reported by the Israeli press as in advanced talks with US-based social network Facebook.
Waze has raised nearly $67m in funding. Its investors also include BlueRun Ventures, the former corporate venturing unit of Finland-based mobile company Nokia, venture firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital and Horizons Ventures Hong Kong. Horizons represents the venture investments of the Hong Kong-based billionaire businessman Li Ka-Shing.
Waze secured $30m of funding in 2011 with investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers(KPCB)’s Digital Growth Fund and iFund , and investment firm Horizons Ventures Hong Kong.
Waze previously raised $25m of funding in December 2010 from Qualcomm Ventures, as well as BlueRun Ventures and Magma Venture Partners, and Vertex Venture Capital.
Originally founded in Israel, in 2006, Waze counted Magma, Vertex and BlueRun among the investors in its previous rounds.
Waze raised $12m in its series A round in March 2008, according to news provider TopNews.