Industry Pioneers Launch SimpleGeo, the Easiest Way to Add Location-Based Services to Any Application

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- With location-based services clearly on the rise, SimpleGeo today formally introduced the SimpleGeo location services infrastructure to provide the foundation for a whole new level of intelligent, location-aware applications. The ready-to-use location infrastructure makes it easy and cost-effective to add geo-aware features to applications.

Founder and CEO Matt Galligan will unveil the platform today at 12:10, at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference 2010, in the Launch Pad session, where chosen entrepreneurs will debut their companies or launch new products onstage.

Built with developers in mind, SimpleGeo eliminates the excessive time and money spent to build and scale location infrastructure.  For the first time, easy-to-use technology and tools will allow customers to have location-based services operational in minutes.  SimpleGeo provides client libraries and SDKs that enable app developers to get up and running quickly on the platform.  The SimpleGeo iPhone SDK makes it easy to build an augmented reality interface in dramatically less time.

At launch, the company already has more than 4,000 developers utilizing the SimpleGeo platform for new and existing applications, including major innovators such as Bump Technologies and ngmoco. More than 1,000 additional developers are awaiting the product's formal launch. The company is introducing two major products today:

• The scalable, cloud-based SimpleGeo Storage Engine is a pay-as-you-go system that allows users to store location data and perform geospatial and temporal queries efficiently.
• The SimpleGeo Marketplace allows developers to discover a wealth of geodata from numerous sources, all normalized and available in one location.  The SimpleGeo Marketplace creates a new economy for geodata providers, putting them directly in touch with developers that want to use their data. Currently there are billions of points of geodata in the market that customers can access, and it continues to grow.  Data is accessed through a per-use or monthly subscription, or a limited free version.

"With the prevalence of location-aware mobile devices and faster mobile connections, location-based services will not only be the next big thing,  the use of location will be leveraged in every application," said Matt Galligan, co-founder and CEO of SimpleGeo. "SimpleGeo is at the nexus of location technology, providing all of the tools and data necessary for developers to make their apps location-aware in a matter of minutes."

Industry analysts believe geo-location will profoundly affect the evolution of the Internet, wireless communications and applications.

"Almost any mobile application can benefit from the use of location intelligence data," said Ted Morgan, co-founder and CEO of Skyhook Wireless. "SimpleGeo will help grow the use of location within apps by making it easier than ever to integrate smart location services like Skyhook's SpotRank."

The company recently announced a major partnership with Skyhook Wireless to leverage SpotRank to tap into the data from the company's positioning technology used in tens of millions of devices around the globe. Also announced today are key partnerships with deCarta, ESRI, Localeze, MetaCarta, Quova, Skyhook Wireless, Stamen Design, and Weather Decision Technologies. These partnerships expand the possibilities and reach of SimpleGeo, increasing the capability of the platform.

S.J. Camarata, a director of ESRI, stated, "ESRI looks forward to forging a new relationship with SimpleGeo. Their technology is complementary with our ArcGIS platform and we anticipate that many of the SimpleGeo users and developers will benefit from the easy to use and very powerful capabilities that we provide in our new Cloud-Ready release of ArcGIS 10. Developers using the SimpleGeo Marketplace will also be able to take advantage of the upcoming ArcGIS.com by registering and providing data to the ESRI user base and will gain access to the vast array of content from many of the world's most authoritative geospatial content providers."

SimpleGeo has raised over $1.5 million seed round funding to date, led by First Round Capital and angel investors including Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca and Shawn Fanning. Founded by Socialthing founder Matt Galligan and former Digg Chief Architect Joe Stump, the company has already generated significant industry buzz through the launch of Vicarious.ly, a sample app that uses a visual representation of real-time location-based stream of information to showcase the company's technology and data.  Vicarious.ly also highlights the company's strong application partners, including BlockChalk, Brightkite, Bump Technologies, Flickr, Fwix, Foursquare, Gowalla, and Twitter.

SimpleGeo is headquartered in Boulder, CO, and recently opened a new office in San Francisco to house key hires for the company, including:

• GIS expert Schuyler Erle as Geographer
• Seth Fitzsimmons as Cartographer, location pioneer formerly of Yahoo's Fire Eagle, and Flickr
• Andrew Mager as Developer Advocate, formerly of Ning and CNET
• Ben Standefer as Systems Engineer, formerly of EventBrite and Digg
• Kim Vogt as Systems Engineer, formerly of Lawrence Livermore Labs/Hadoop

For additional information, visit http://www.simplegeo.com

About SimpleGeo

SimpleGeo provides a ready-to-use platform that makes it easy to store, scale and discover geodata for use on the web and applications. Founded in May 2009 by Joe Stump and Matt Galligan, SimpleGeo has raised over $1.5 million seed round funding to date led by First Round Capital and other influential angel investors. SimpleGeo has offices in both Boulder, CO and San Francisco, CA.

SOURCE SimpleGeo