what3words Closes Funding Round Led by Intel Capital
London/San Jose, November 3rd, 2015 - what3words, the multi-award winning addressing platform, has closed a $3.5m Series A funding round led by Intel Capital, with Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures and several of the company’s original angel investors also participating. The announcement was made today at the annual Intel Capital Global Summit in San Diego, California.
what3words is a location reference platform based on a global grid of 57 trillion 3mx3m squares, where each square has a unique pre-assigned 3 word address. For example, “crayon.giants.liking” is a perfect spot in the Grand Canyon to take a picture of the Kaibab Suspension Bridge across the Colorado River. The solution helps everyone who needs to share or find a location, whether they are a tourist, a logistics company or a navigation system.
The geospatial industry has made huge advances in mapping and navigation technology, but the central part of the experience – identifying a specific location – has not evolved. Around the world, street addressing is irregular and incomplete; finding an address and communicating it to others is still an imperfect science. Whilst GPS coordinates, with their two sets of 8 to 10 digits, are accurate and universal, they are unwieldy to use and prone to significant errors in transcription and communication.what3words is currently available in 9 languages – from English and Arabic to Spanish and Swahili – and is already being used in more than 170 countries by logistics firms, navigation apps, travel guides and NGOs. These include offline navigation giant Navmii, the United Nations disaster recovery app UN-ASIGN and Norway’s National Mapping website Norgeskart.
Last month the world’s leading global geographic information software company, Esri, made what3words available across its ArcGIS platform. Esri is used by more than 350,000 businesses, government agencies and NGOs around the world, who between them create some 150 million new maps every day.
“Geographical information is a fundamental business tool. A simple way to communicate location is essential to unleash its full potential for everyone. what3words has solved a major aspect of that problem, particularly in geographies that are disadvantaged with a lack of addressing and place name description data. Addressing has just got easier.„Jack Dangermond, the President of Esri
what3words will use the new investment to add languages to the service, introduce voice recognition and expand the business’ geographical presence, including a new office in Silicon Valley.
“People don’t have to get lost. Whether you need to deliver a parcel, pinpoint a medical emergency, tell a friend or colleague where to meet, or support vital infrastructure, with a 3 word address, it’s easy for everybody to communicate a specific location. Our mission is to allow everyone to talk about everywhere, simply & easily.„Chris Sheldrick, CEO & co-founder of what3words
Earlier this year what3words was awarded a Sobrato Organization Economic Development Award at Silicon Valley’s Tech Awards, and won the Grand Prix for Innovation at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel’s strategic investment and M&A organization, backs innovative technology startups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of hardware, software, and services companies targeting computing and smart devices, cloud, datacenter, security, the Internet of Things, wearable and robotic technologies and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested nearly US$11.6 billion in over 1,400 companies in 57 countries. In that timeframe, 213 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world, and 373 were acquired or participated in a merger. Through its business development programs, Intel Capital curates thousands of meetings each year between its portfolio and Intel’s partners in the Global 2000. For more information on what makes Intel Capital one of the world’s most powerful venture capital firms, visit www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.