Nokia has acquired Israeli startup Rapid (formerly known as RapidAPI), TechCrunch reports. Rapid has raised $272 million since its founding, and two years ago it was valued at $1 billion. But since then, the company, which developed API Hub to help developers create and collaborate on APIs, has reached a dead end with its platform, firing 82% of its employees including its founder and CEO Edo Gino, who was once considered the child prodigy of… Israel. Technology. It has now sold its assets to Nokia for an undisclosed sum.
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API platform RapidAPI raises $150 million at $1 billion valuation
Tech industry sources believe the company was sold with cash left over from a previous fundraising round in 2022 for an estimated $150 million. In this way, it seems that the company’s current investors, the most important of which is SoftBank, will recover part of their investments in the company. Other investors include Israeli funds Viola, Qamra, Andreessen Horowitz, Green Bay, DNS Capital and M12. Dov Moran’s Grove Fund sold its stake in the company several years ago.
With the company’s turmoil in 2023, through the involvement of SoftBank, the company’s largest investor, the Israeli management was replaced by a mostly American team, led by CEO Mark Friend, who fired more than 150 employees in the company, leaving about 40 employees.
Rapid has created a digital market for software interfaces (APIs), a specialty that Nokia wants to pass on to its customers from cellular and telecom operations, to help them connect with a greater number of application developers.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on November 14, 2024.
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