Facebook Opens Its First Office In Israel

Facebook has been concentrating its mobile internet business. In an effort to increase the number of people connected to the internet in developing countries, Facebook has acquired several companies that can help them to achieve their goal. Most recently, the social network giant announced that they had successfully bought Israeli company, Onavo and now has its first office in Israel.

Onavo is a Tel Aviv based company that gives app publishers the opportunity to track and analyze the  and popularity of their app as well as comparing it to others. For Facebook, such analytics will offer up many advantages for them as well as their customers. However, the main draw of acquiring Onavo is the fact that the company also works as a data compression company. The young Israeli company compresses the amount of data download for apps, helping the device to handle more apps while using less battery. This technology could play a key part in the Internet.org initiative with the goal to make smartphone internet service more accessible.

In addition to the technological advantages Onavo could give Facebook, there is also the fact that Tel Aviv is central to a fast growing tech scene. With their recent acquisition, Facebook have secured a holding in that scene and will undoubtedly put it to good use at a later date.

Although Facebook has absorbed other companies from all over the world, they have always brought the employees to their head offices in California. On this occasion though, Onavo were sure to broker a deal where their 40 employees would remain in Tel Aviv in their own office. The result of this is that Facebook now have their first ever office in Israel.

The exact amount that Facebook bought Onavo for is not known but rumor has it that the figure is somewhere between $150-200 million which means this is the largest acquisition for Facebook since the purchase of Instagram for $1 billion.

[Image via All Things D]