US-based social traffic and navigation application (app) Waze secured $30m of funding yesterday with investment from venture capital (VC) firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers(KPCB)’s Digital Growth Fund and iFund , and investment firm Horizons Ventures Hong Kong. Horizons is representing the venture investments of the Hong Kong-based billionaire businessman Li Ka-Shing.
Waze previously raised $25m of funding in December last year from Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venturing division of wireless telecommunication and semiconductor corporation Qualcomm, as well as VC firms Bluerun Ventures and Magma Venture Partners, and VC fund Vertex Venture Capital.
Originally founded in Israel, in 2006, Waze counted Magma, Vertex and BlueRun among the investors in its previous rounds, though precise figures concerning funding have not been disclosed.
Waze provides Global Positioning System (GPS) traffic navigation services to its users through a community of drivers who pool information in real-time. Having released the 3.0 version of its app last week, Wazed plans to use the investment to expand its service, which is now made up of more than seven million users, to China.