Report: Facebook $1 Billion Waze Acquisition Talks Fall Apart

We recently reported that Facebook was in talks with Waze over the past few months to acquire the company for around $1 billion, and we also recently learned that Google and others had stepped in with their own offers.  Which led many to believe that a bidding war for Waze was just about to start.  However, now it seems that the Facebook and Waze acquisition talks have come to a halt.

The talks of an acquisition fell through in recent days according to All Things D sources. According to the sources, the problem in large part is about conflicts over whether or not the Waze team — which is predominantly based in Israel — would move over to the United States and join Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.

Facebook doesn’t currently offer a mapping solution of its own and being that the Waze traffic app is inherently social, it seemed like a Facebook acquisition of Waze would make sense.  One commenter over at VentureBeat pointed out that Google has an R&D office in Israel, which may be more appealing to Waze if it meant they didn’t have to move.

Waze has $67 million in funding and 45 million users, and is one of the most successful startups to be founded in Israel.