Uri Levine, Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar — Founders of Waze

Uri Levine, Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar are the Israeli entrepreneurs who founded the company behind Waze, the navigation application that brought crowdsourcing into the car. Their work transformed drivers from passive readers of a map into participants in a constantly changing picture of the road. Rather than relying only on fixed road data and a predetermined route, Waze learned from users’ locations, speeds and reports, detected congestion as it developed, and proposed alternatives based on current conditions.

The idea began in Israel as a community mapping project, grew into an international technology company and was acquired by Google in June 2013. By then, the service had close to 50 million users. Its importance extends beyond a major business transaction: Waze showed how an everyday Israeli problem—finding the best route through crowded and frequently changing roads—could inspire a product that became useful to people around the world.

From FreeMap Israel to a technology company

A map built by its community

The story began in 2006, when programmer Ehud Shabtai created FreeMap Israel. The project aimed to build a digital map database of Israel with the help of its users. At a time when accurate, frequently updated online maps could not be taken for granted, drivers and volunteers helped document roads, junctions, addresses and changes on the ground.

Behind the project was an important insight: a useful map did not have to remain a static diagram. It could become a living system, continually corrected by the people actually traveling through the territory it represented. Community contributions improved the underlying map, while data transmitted by mobile devices later made it possible to understand traffic conditions as well as the shape of the road network.

Building the company

In 2008, Shabtai, Uri Levine and Amir Shinar formed a company to turn the project into a commercial product with international reach. Initially known as LinQmap, it later became Waze Mobile. Shabtai brought the original community project and its early development; Levine played a central role in building the business, shaping its strategy and taking the product to a global market; and Shinar helped establish the technological and organizational foundation on which the service grew.

Noam Bardin was appointed chief executive in 2009. His business leadership was important to Waze’s international expansion and commercial development, complementing the work of the founders, although he was not one of the three founders. The main development operation was based in Ra’anana, Israel, alongside a presence in the United States. By December 2011, the company employed 80 people—70 in Israel and ten in Palo Alto.

The innovation that changed navigation

Understanding what is happening on the road

A conventional navigation system can calculate how to travel from one point to another. Waze added a more immediate question: what is the best way to get there now? The platform combined several kinds of information. Drivers’ locations and speeds enabled it to detect slow traffic automatically; user reports supplied details about crashes, closures, hazards and other events; and community map editors could correct roads, landmarks, house numbers and local details.

Waze processed that information and returned it to the community as updated arrival times, alerts and alternative routes. This created a powerful feedback loop. As more people drove with Waze and contributed data, the system’s view of the road improved. As it became more useful, its community grew. Waze consequently became a leading example of a digital product whose value is created in part by the active participation of its users.

Making complex technology feel simple

One of Waze’s strengths was its ability to make a complicated technical system feel immediate and accessible. Drivers did not need to understand geographic databases, cellular data or traffic-prediction algorithms. They saw a route, an estimated arrival time and a useful warning. The combination of GPS, mobile connectivity, automated data processing, human reports and a friendly interface turned sophisticated technology into an everyday tool.

Waze served two distinct needs. It helped people reach unfamiliar destinations, but it also changed familiar journeys. Drivers began opening a navigation application on the way to work or home—not because they had forgotten the route, but because they wanted to know which route was fastest at that particular moment. In this respect, Waze changed behavior as well as software.

Growing from Israel into a global service

The company raised capital from Israeli and American venture investors to expand its infrastructure, staff and international reach. It secured $25 million in a 2010 funding round and approximately $30 million more in 2011. That financing supported rapid growth as Waze moved beyond its original Israeli setting.

In 2011, the application added community-curated points of interest and information about local events. In 2012, the company began developing revenue through location-based advertising, enabling businesses to reach drivers in a relevant geographic context. Waze data also became a source for traffic reporting by television news organizations. The product was evolving from a personal navigation tool into a broader real-time information platform.

In February 2013, the GSMA recognized Waze as the Best Overall Mobile App at Mobile World Congress. The award came at a point when the Israeli company had become not merely a successful local service but a major participant in the international mobile mapping and navigation market.

Google’s acquisition and the Israeli development center

Google acquired Waze in June 2013. The complete financial terms were not publicly disclosed, and contemporary reports placed the value at figures ranging from about $1 billion to approximately $1.3 billion. The transaction’s historical importance does not depend on a single estimate. Google was acquiring a large user community, real-time traffic technology and a brand that had already become part of daily driving in many countries.

At the time of the acquisition, Waze had roughly 100 employees and close to 50 million users. Its development team continued operating in Israel as a distinct part of Google for years afterward. This preserved a significant Israeli center of expertise in digital mapping, transportation data and location-based applications. The acquisition also gave employees, investors and the wider Israeli technology ecosystem experience and resources that could flow into later ventures.

Waze continued to evolve after the founders’ era. Later additions included support for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, lane guidance and integrations with audio services. A ridesharing service eventually known as Waze Carpool operated in several countries before being discontinued in 2022 following changes in commuting patterns. These later developments were not all personal achievements of Levine, Shabtai and Shinar, but they were built on the platform and community the founders helped create.

From a driver’s tool to civic infrastructure

Waze’s influence eventually extended beyond the individual driver. In 2014, after the Google acquisition, the company launched the Connected Citizens Program, later developed and renamed Waze for Cities. It enabled a two-way exchange between Waze and public authorities: governments could receive aggregated information about congestion and road incidents, while supplying data on planned construction, closures and other changes. Hundreds of government bodies, transportation departments and municipalities used the program for traffic analysis, road planning and responses to major events.

For Israel, Waze became one of the most recognizable stories associated with the country’s startup culture. It brought together software engineering, entrepreneurship, commercial ambition and a willingness to give the user community a substantive role in the product. In 2015, Ehud Shabtai was selected to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony, held that year under the theme of pioneering Israelis—a public acknowledgment of the project’s place in the story of Israeli innovation.

Waze also offered an influential example to Israeli engineers and entrepreneurs. It demonstrated that a company built in Israel could create a global consumer product, rather than only supplying technology behind the scenes to other businesses. A locally developed mapping project, a team based in Ra’anana and an idea rooted in Israeli roads became associated with the daily experience of millions of drivers.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Uri Levine, Ehud Shabtai and Amir Shinar merit inclusion in Moreshet because their work changed a basic and tangible human activity: finding one’s way and deciding how to travel from place to place. They did more than build a digital map. They helped create a system in which drivers share knowledge, traffic data becomes an immediate decision-making tool, and technology developed in Israel assists people around the world.

Their contribution to Israeli heritage lies in the combination of local problem-solving, community participation, engineering and international company-building. Waze influenced driving habits, mobile navigation, crowdsourced technology and the way both communities and public authorities understand movement in real time.

Their profile on Moreshet.com is therefore not simply the record of a large technology acquisition. It preserves the story of an Israeli idea that began with a community map, grew through collaboration and became part of global daily life. The founders’ lasting influence can be seen whenever information contributed by one group of travelers helps another driver make a better decision on the road.