Nokia acquires Israeli API co Rapid

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Valued at $1 billion two years ago, the company is mainly being bought for its $150 million in cash and less for its API platform.

Nokia has acquired Israeli company Rapid (formerly known as RapidAPI), "TechCrunch" reports. Rapid has raised $272 million since it was founded and two years ago had a valuation of $1 billion. But since then the company, which developed an API Hub to help developers create and collaborate on APIs, reached an impasse with its platform, and fired 82% of its employees including its founder and CEO Iddo Gino, once considered the wonder-kid of Israeli tech. It has now sold its assets to Nokia for an undisclosed sum.

Technology industry sources believe the company was sold with cash fund left over from the previous fundraising round in 2022 worth an estimated $150 million. In this way, it seems that the existing investors in the company, the main one of which is SoftBank, will recoup part of their investment in the company. Other investors include Israeli funds Viola and Qumra, Andreessen Horowitz, Green Bay, DNS Capital and M12. Dov Moran's Grove Fund sold its stake in the company several years ago.

With the upheaval that the company underwent in 2023, through the involvement of SoftBank, the largest investor in the company, the Israeli management was replaced by a mostly American team, led by CEO Marc Friend, who fired over 150 employees in the company, leaving about 40 employees.

Rapid has established a digital market for interfaces between programs (API), a specialization that Nokia wants to take to its customers from the cellular and communication operations, in order 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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