SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Socrata (www.socrata.com) – the global leader in software solutions that are designed exclusively for digital government, delivering unprecedented data-driven innovation and cost savings for hundreds of public sector leaders and millions of their constituents around the world – today announced robust results for the first quarter of 2015.
Socrata’s leading-edge platform, which capitalizes on the company’s latest technology advances, puts people front and center, making sure that the information they need is readily available and totally approachable.
And this technology vision helped Socrata generate measurable success on virtually every level during the past quarter – including a rapidly expanding customer list and growing employee base as well as surging platform adoption, data consumption and developer engagement.
In the process, Socrata is catapulting 21st century data-driven government forward as the public sector on just about every continent makes the transition from costly old legacy technology to affordable new constituent-friendly digital solutions.
“We’ve achieved leadership success because we’re re-thinking open data, re-thinking data technology and re-thinking the user experience,” says Kevin Merritt, Socrata’s Founder and CEO. “Governments all over the world are asking us to provide them with a new experience that automatically brings their datasets to life in an understandable, digestible and accessible way.”
Adds Robert Runge, a member of Socrata’s Board of Directors: “Our strong numbers reflect the fact that we’re offering customers cutting-edge, government-specific solutions architected from the bottom up around the unique properties and requirements of government data, government workflow, government ecosystem and government constituents. Socrata is delivering government-optimized, SaaS-based design breakthroughs for 21st century data-driven digital government.”
Customer Growth
- Demand for Socrata’s products continued to surge in Q1 2015 and generated 104% year-over-year growth in its customer base, which includes hundreds of the most innovative and data-driven digital government leaders and public sector organizations.
- Socrata continues to gain both large and small customers. Some of the Q1 2015 additions to the company’s customer list included the Cities of Reno (NV); Norfolk (VA); Alexandria (VA); Fullerton (CA); Detroit (MI); Cedar Hill (TX); City of Corinth (TX); Dubuque (IA); the California State Treasurer’s Office; State of Rhode Island; Douglas County (CO); Indian Ocean Commission; Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness Team; and Darlington County (SC).
- These new customers join established Socrata customers like the cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Eindhoven; the states of New York, Illinois and Texas; US Health and Human Services; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; the UN, the European Commission and the World Bank.
- Socrata launched 46 new data-driven projects in Q1 2015 for our customers.
- Open data portal launches included the State of Utah; Miami-Dade County (FL); Cities of Detroit (MI); Danville (VA); Urbana (IL); Reading (PA); Olathe (KS); Santa Rosa (CA); and Granollers (Spain).
- Open Performance launches included the State of Michigan; Seattle’s Department of Transportation (WA); Danville (VA); and the Australian Capital Territory’s public transportation network (ACTION).
- Redesigned open data portal launches included the City of Los Angeles and State of Oregon.
- Launches of Socrata’s breakthrough suite of Financial Transparency Apps included Montgomery Country (MD); the State of Rhode Island; the Stutsman County (ND); Cities of Boston (MA); Virginia Beach (VA); Burlington (Canada); Glendale (CA); Culver City (CA); Kansas City (KS); Davenport (IA); Redmond (WA); and Hartford (CT).
Financial Transparency App Growth
- Socrata’s integrated and user friendly suite of Financial Transparency applications, which help governments of all sizes publish budget and spending data quickly, economically and in a consumer-friendly way, remained one of the fastest-selling government technology products in history during Q1 2015.
- In Q1 2015, Socrata grew its customer base for this solution by 52% quarter-over-quarter.
- In the less than one year since its release, 85 customers have adopted the company’s groundbreaking suite of Financial Transparency apps.
Platform Adoption / Data Consumption / Developer Engagement
- Socrata’s developer community continues to embrace API integrations, with external API calls to the Socrata platform increasing 96% in Q1 2015 compared to Q4 2014.
- In terms of year-over-year growth, tokenized API Calls increased 393% in Q1 2015; there were nearly five times as many calls in Q1 2015 as in Q1 2014.
- With help from a major feature on the HBO late-night, weekly news show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) healthcare transparency site, powered by Socrata, received nearly 5.5 million views in February 2015.
- Well-established Socrata customers continue to experience growing end-user consumption, with sites launched before October 2014 seeing 14% quarter-over-quarter growth in page views during Q1 2015 (even after excluding the John Oliver-driven viewer surge for openpaymentsdata.cms.gov).
- Accessible data – measured by the total datasets available through Socrata sites – increased by 15% quarter-over-quarter.
Company Growth
- Socrata continues to add employees across all areas of it business in order to accelerate product innovation and help support its rapidly expanding customer base. With a hiring smart and at scale approach, the total number of employees at the company – 170 at the beginning of April – has increased nearly 100% year-over-year.
Launch of the Socrata Foundation
- Socrata launched the Socrata Foundation in Q1 2015 to support unique, cutting-edge and deserving organizations that lack the financial means to fulfill their data-driven mission.
- The Socrata Foundation’s first investment will be in the City of Detroit’s open data portal, which will make volumes of non-personal government information broadly available and usable by people and machines without any constraints.
- The Socrata Foundation will also support Big Mountain Data (BMD), which develops data science solutions to help in the fight against family abuse and violence.
- Looking forward, the Socrata Foundation hopes to help organizations like Heat Seek NYC, which is leading a civic hacking project that’s tapping the Internet of Things in order to tackle New York City’s heating crisis. Click here to see a feature on Heat Seek NYC on OpenData.TV.
Addition of Yelp to Socrata’s Network of Partnerships
- During Q1 2015, Socrata and Yelp – the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists – formed an open data partnership to distribute restaurant inspection information that will improve public health conditions around the world.
- Yelp joins SunGard Public Sector, Zillow, the National League of Cities and the European Commission (EU), among others, in Socrata’s vibrant and expanding network of partnerships.
Addition of New Members to Socrata’s Advisory Board
- Socrata Announced two significant additions to its Advisory Board in Q1 2015 – David Eaves, an internationally recognized open innovation expert, and Harvard Professor Stephen Goldsmith, who formerly served as Mayor of Indianapolis and Deputy Mayor of New York City for Operations.
Launch of OpenData.TV
- In late February, Socrata launched Open Data TV (OpenData.TV), an innovative video network showcasing the valuable work and remarkable people driving the global revolution in data-driven government, which is already taking hold in cities, townships, counties, provinces, states and countries around the world.
- Since its launch, Open Data TV has received thousands of views, with nearly 20 thought leadership feature videos posted.
“We believe that the future is exceedingly bright for our company,” says Socrata’s Merritt, “because we’re helping digital government leadership around the world use one of the most valuable and new natural resources – open data – to drive outcomes and connect more effectively with constituents. Ultimately, fact-based and data-driven government will become the fundamental basis for all critical and strategic decisions made in the public sector everywhere.”
ABOUT SOCRATA
Socrata is the global leader in software solutions that are designed exclusively for digital government, delivering unprecedented data-driven innovation and cost savings for hundreds of public sector leaders and millions of their constituents around the world.
The company’s customers include the cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Eindhoven; the states of New York, Illinois and Texas; US Health and Human Services; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; the UN, the European Commission, and the World Bank.
Built on an affordable, cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, the integrated Socrata Digital Government Cloud is complemented by the Socrata Open Data Network and professionally supported by the Socrata Partner Ecosystem.
Socrata equips governments and NGOs of every size so they can rapidly transform outdated and expensive data access models, Web sites and legacy applications into intuitive, visually rich, intelligent consumer-grade apps and user experiences that can now be enriched and sustained by real-time government data, perhaps the most economically powerful public asset in history.
Socrata’s digital government solutions are being deployed for a wide array of strategic and mission-critical government services: enhancing quality of life through constituent empowerment; increasing operational efficiency through fact-based, data-driven decision support; stimulating economic impact and opportunity by transforming open government data into the world’s most valuable, self-replenishing natural resource; and promoting unique intra and intergovernmental cooperation and collaboration by breaking down silos and dramatically reducing access barriers.
Government in the 21st century must become digital by default to remain relevant and keep up with the needs of modern, digital society, whose expectations have been altered by the Internet, cloud computing, social media, mobility and an explosion of data.
To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.
