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"Rumors of the potential Apple acquisition of Waze\u00A0lit up the blogosphere this week,\u00A0only to be extinguished the very next day. However,\u00A0a deal was very much on the table, but the Israeli startup politely declined Apple's offer.\r\n\r\nUpdate: A source familiar with Apple's plans tells us that there are, in fact, no talks going on.\r\n\r\nIt all started when Israeli technology website Newsgeek published a report\u00A0(almost immediately corroborated\u00A0by TechCrunch) stating that Apple had tabled a $500 million bid for Waze. It looked like Apple would be grabbing itself a valuable source of data to improve its much-maligned iOS 6 Maps app.\r\n\r\nHowever, less than 24 hours later, CrunchFund partner and TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler noted that while the two companies may have entered talks, the deal was, in fact, not happening. Siegler was light on detail, moving only to pour a bit of cold water on the original report.\r\n\r\nThe fact is, both reports had elements of truth in them; Apple was interested in buying Waze, but was a long way off what the Israeli company believed it was worth.\r\n\r\nWhile it has been reported that Waze was holding out for $750 million, multiple sources have told us that the company was valued around $200 million in its last funding round, and current investors were aiming for a higher price, somewhere nearing $1 billion.\r\n\r\nWaze politely declined the offer, and the deal is definitely off \u2013 at least for now.\r\n\r\nOur sources also tell us that Waze has received more than one acquisition offer in the last year, but has declined them all, as it looks to build something big and not look for a quick exit.\r\n\r\nWe were also told that Waze\u00A0has held a number of closed-door meetings in the past few months discussing its future, highlighting the company's desire to build the company, boost its (currently ad-supported) revenues, and even pursue the idea of an IPO.\r\n\r\nWhile Waze has an impressive user base (20 million at last count and said to be nearing 30 million), the company has still not found a way to adequately monetize its product, or build a scalable business model to profit from.\r\n\r\nIf the company does intend to go public, it doesn't appear to be the most obvious path, especially when you consider how some of the more recent tech IPOs have fared.\r\n\r\nFor Waze to become successful as a company and go public, it would need a large and growing userbase (which it admittedly has), and a working business model. A licensing deal to power some of Apple's mapping features might be the start of that, but as it stands, it falls short.\r\n\r\nIf Waze can't get there, the only remaining option for the company's investors to get a good return on their investment would be to find the partner who benefits from its technology or its other assets the most, and sell the company for a larger sum.\r\n\r\nImage Credit:\u00A0frontiersofinteraction/Flickr"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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