Russian Yandex acquires Israeli KitLocate

YEREVAN, March 18. / ARKA /. The Russian web giant Yandex has bought an Israeli geolocation firm called KitLocate for its energy-saving location technology, RBC reported.

KitLocate provides a software development kit full of location capabilities for apps – geo-fencing, motion detection and “social location” – that request the user’s coordinates less frequently, saving on power consumption.

Yandex will use these capabilities, which apparently use less than 1 percent of the device’s battery per hour when active, in its own location-based mobile search app and other services.

The deal, worth “several million euros”, also gives Yandex an office in Tel Aviv. KitLocate comes with 8 staffers, and Yandex will hire more engineers and mobile quality assurance workers for the office.

KitLocate was established in 2012. In the same year it won a startups contest organized by the Israeli association of technology industries (IATI) together with MasterCard. - 0