You know those bewitchingly beautiful maps you use on an almost daily basis? The ones on foursquare, Uber, Evernote, and even Hipmunk? Well MapBox, the startup that sells interactive street and satellite map access for an easy way to navigate the city, closed a $10 million Series A round with Foundry Group Tuesday. Unexpected? I think not.
"This round is squarely focused on bringing more amazing people to our team in both San Francisco and Washington, DC. We are going to win with team," CEO Eric Gunderson said in a blog post.
And now we have real runway. For three years, we've been completely bootstrapped, which meant we had only a few months in the bank at any time. That changed: combined with a rapidly growing userbase, funding lets us plan for years of building the future of geo software, from the ground up.
Exciting news, eh?
MapBox's platform offers developers the power to create maps that truly embody their brand, visualizations that are integrated into already existing apps and websites to give an even greater experience to engaged users. Over the past three years the whole team of passionate cartographers, software engineers, and data analysts, has dedicated their time and experience to creating something so innately spectacular and innovative, which has lead to the success they've clearly found today. Even Apple has tried to emulate MapBox's style, but their execution has paled in comparison to the D.C.-based startup.
As for the new Foundry Group partnership, Gunderson explained that they are the ideal group to work with. "They get big data, understand our platform play, and see how open source and open data are our comparative advantage," he wrote. "Most importantly, they believe in our long-term business plans to break open this space and stay independent. We're just getting started, and are excited to have the right partners next to us."
MapBox is well on its way to dominating the custom map-building space.
