Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Li Ka-Shing http://pulse2.com Sun, 27 May 2012 16:32:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Social Navigation Company Waze Raises $30 Million http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/social-navigation-company-waze-raises-30-million/ http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/social-navigation-company-waze-raises-30-million/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:24:25 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=52089 Continue reading →]]>
Waze is a social navigation company that has raised $30 million in funding. Investors in this round include Horizons Ventures Hong Kong (Li Ka-shing’s private venture investments), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and the iFund. Waze has raised a total of over $55 million thus far.

John Malloy of Blue Run Ventures and Jason Wong of Horizon Ventures has joined the board of directors at Waze. Mary Meeker has joined Waze as a strategic advisor and board observer at Waze as well.

Waze started in 2009 and has free apps on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. The app has turn-by-turn directions and uses user data for building maps. Waze users are reporting a traffic jam every 4.2 seconds.

Waze said that the company plans on expanding internationally. Waze has seen some accelerated growth in Spain, Mexico, Malaysia, and Brazil.

]]> http://pulse2.com/2011/10/18/social-navigation-company-waze-raises-30-million/feed/ 0 Joost Is Further Fading Into Irrelevance http://pulse2.com/2009/06/30/joost-is-further-fading-into-irrelevance/ http://pulse2.com/2009/06/30/joost-is-further-fading-into-irrelevance/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:25:42 +0000 Amit Chowdhry http://pulse2.com/?p=16978 Continue reading →]]>
Joost was started by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis back in October 2006.  The company raised about $45 million in funding shortly after starting up.  Investors included Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Viacom, CBS and Li Ka-shing.  Joost killed off their desktop application and became purely a web service in September 2008.

Joost announced that they have replaced former CEO Mike Volpi.  Joost SVP of Engineering Matt Zelesko will be replacing Volpi.  However Volpi will remain as Chairman of the board.

As a result of Joost’s lack of growth compared to YouTube, Hulu, and other video services Joost has decided to focus on providing video platforms for bigger companies.  There will also be major layoffs.  Joost employs about 100 people in New York and London.

[via Reuters]

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