Last week, the U.S. point of interest data provider dataplor closed a $10.6 million Series A equity funding round, led by Boston-based VC firm Spark Capital.
Spark has invested in some of the biggest names in tech, in both consumer and B2B. These companies include Affirm, Carta, Cruise, Discord, Oculus, Plaid, Postmates, Slack, Twitter, and Wayfair.
Also participating in the round were ffVC and existing investors Quest Venture Partners, Acronym Venture Capital, Circadian Ventures, Two Lanterns Venture Partners, and APA Venture Partners. Spark Capital’s Alex Finkelstein will join the dataplor board along with ffVC’s John Frankel.
$20.3M Raised to Date
Dataplor, founded in 2016 by Geoff Michener, has assembled more than 250 million POI across 200 countries and territories. The Series A round brings the company’s cumulative fundraising total since launch to $20.3 million.
“With this new funding, we’re poised to explore new frontiers, tackle bigger challenges, and deliver even greater value to our customers,” Michener said in a blog post announcing the investment. “We’re thrilled about the new opportunities ahead.”
dataPlor Raises $4 Million to Grow Emerging Markets Location Data Platform
Michener said the funding will not change dataplor’s fundamental approach. This, he says in the post, has been to marry the human touch with advanced technology.
“We’ve seen the value that international POI data can unlock for businesses, and our approach of including humans in the loop has been validated each step of the way,” Michener said.
“Building a robust product and team was critical in our early growth. We also found our sweet spot of using both technology—AI algorithms for gathering data, de-duping it, finding errors, etc.—and expert human validators as the key to building accurate data at scale.”
Michener does see dataplor using the funding to lean harder into using technology as a force multiplier for the business.
“Our funding empowers us to continue investments in new technologies that will scale the work of our human intelligence gatherers and analysts.”
Focus Remains on Emerging Markets
We spoke today with Michener to learn more about the raise and Dataplor’s near-term ambitions.
Dataplor has set itself apart by focusing on emerging markets, where the need is great for rationalizing location data. Michener said that focus will remain, as the company’s geographic ambitions grow.
“While our focus remains on addressing the significant challenges within location data in developing markets like Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, and Egypt, our approach allows us to broaden our scope globally,” Michener told Localogy Insider.
“This includes developed regions such as the US, Canada, and Western Europe. Our clients prefer to work with fewer data vendors. And our capability to provide reliable data across any geography significantly aligns with their needs.”
Michener also sees the funding as fuel to allow dataplor to keep pace with the evolution in location intelligence. For instance, he is seeing location intelligence being used across a wide swath of applications.
As the use of location data expands across various industries—including technology, mapping, search, real estate, logistics, retail/QSR, investing, and fintech—we are noticing increased adoption, Michener told us. “Companies are leveraging this data for multiple applications such as sales and marketing, market analysis, product development, and competitive intelligence.”
He added that the standards for location data are becoming tougher, as are privacy rules.
“Clients are increasingly demanding high-quality data with consistent global coverage and detailed attributes that are applicable across different markets. Additionally, there is a growing emphasis on privacy compliance,” Michener said.
“At dataplor, we offer GDPR-compliant data that integrates insights from numerous sources. This ensures there is no personally identifiable information (PII) involved.”
