Amazon has reportedly closed a deal to buy 3D mapping startup UpNext, making its foray into the mapping business.
While the value of the acquisition is undisclosed, UpNext investors will get a five-fold return on their investment of $500,000 made in March 2011, GigaOM reported.
The company’s investors include Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, David Cohen’s Bullet Time Ventures, David Tisch’s Box Group and Paul Sethi’s PKS Capital.
UpNext, formed in 2007, offers mapping software for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices and covers 50 cities nationwide.
Following the deal, the UpNext founders Raj Advani, Vik Advani, Robin Har and Danny Moon will be relocating from New York to Seattle, to join with Amazon’s mapping venture.
Since the Internet retail giant does not have a mapping service of its own, the deal is seen as a move by Amazon to boost its future Fire tablet versions and foray into the consumer electronics sector.
According to the report UpNext acquisition "potentially points to a more robust Kindle Fire from Amazon that could offer native mapping capabilities."
The current Kindle Fire tablet requires users to download third-party Android mapping apps or access online mapping services through the browser and doesn’t have GPS capabilities, the technology news service revealed.
Digital mapping services market is becoming an area of intense competition between the major technology companies and the competition between Apple and Google is getting increasingly strong after they have announced plans for 3D-mapping services.
Last month, Google announced an upgraded version of its popular digital mapping service, adding several new features that will attract users.
Initially, available only on devices using Google’s Android software, the feature lets users access to maps even when they’re offline.
Apple also got into the mobile mapping game and announced its own map service for iOS 6, replacing the default Google Maps service.
