We are mapping and measuring everything, live. About five minutes into the meeting with Masayoshi Son and his team, I knew SoftBank should be our partners. We didn’t focus on “mapping” directly — rather we discussed how real-time location data will flow from decentralized networks of low powered mobile sensors that are now inside everything.
The opportunity at hand for our platform extends into every industry, transforming the fundamentals of how everything — people and goods — move through our world. I was looking for more than just capital — I wanted someone who understands our vision and is willing to deploy a magnitude of capital for us to set a new trajectory. The SoftBank team gets it and understands how location data is transformational to every industry.
Today, the SoftBank Vision Fund is leading our $164 million Series C raise, along with participation from Foundry Group, DFJ Growth, DBL, and Thrive. This amount of capital is a step change for our platform, accelerating our work in three key areas:
- Building out an automotive unit, including in-car navigation and autonomous driving by investing in our deep learning and vision capabilities.
- Expanding our AR/VR/Gaming platform, specifically by growing the Unity Maps SDK team.
- Accelerating our global expansion across Southeast Asia, China, and Europe.
This additional capital accelerates our speed of capturing the market, letting us focus on building tech, and executing on our current plan and priorities to address the massive opportunity ahead. We measure our success by developer traction. We win when developers are able to build amazing apps and expand their businesses. Every day we collect more than 200 million miles of anonymized sensor data, and process it in real-time, making continuous updates to the map — from live traffic, to adding new roads, to updating satellite imagery. The more apps use Mapbox, the greater the network effect across 350 million users every month.
Capital doesn’t change our business fundamentals — but cash changes what’s achievable, letting us grow our team and build together faster.
❤️ to all developers, partners, and customers building with us over the years. As a platform, we live vicariously through what you create with our tools — your success is our success. The passion, focus and desire to win by the entire Mapbox team built this amazing platform. We’re just getting started. More details in the press release.
