LAKEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WhiteStar Corporation (www.whitestar.com), a leading global information systems (GIS) data and software company, today announced private equity firm Contour Ridge has made a strategic growth investment and will acquire a majority stake in the Company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. WhiteStar helps companies apply a data-driven approach to infrastructure planning and land management by providing cloud-native, on-demand access to streaming, harmonized land data paired with an intuitive land mapping software to spatialize their land assets.
Clients rely on WhiteStar data across the land management value chain, including competitive intelligence and feasibility, program budgeting, land acquisition, surveying, design and engineering and construction, as well as land maintenance and divestiture. WhiteStar’s capabilities are used by dozens of blue-chip companies across a variety of industries, and it is seeing uptake in fast growing ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) industries as well as telecommunication companies rolling out larger and more advanced networks.
“Our goal is for WhiteStar data and software to power land analytics for every company with land interests in the United States,” said Robert White, CEO of WhiteStar. “To accomplish this, we need to accelerate the development of our data and technologies such as AI, machine learning and natural language processing, creating higher fidelity representations of client land holdings. Our selection of Contour Ridge as an investment partner broadens our vision and facilitates turning it into a reality.”
Since its founding, WhiteStar has built the most comprehensive proprietary digital land grid database in the United States, represents almost 33 million proprietary business land polygons, all mapped to a controlled and proprietary data model, which is interoperable across major mapping platforms like ESRI ArcGIS, and integrated with WhiteStar Cloud® flexible and robust REST APIs. WhiteStar Grid® covers the thirty Public Land Survey States mapped to the lot, tract and quarter-quarter level, Texas Land Survey, Carter Townships for Kentucky and Tennessee, Federal and State Offshore survey, Pennsylvania Municipalities, New York Civil Townships, West Virginia Tax Districts and WhiteStar Parcels for more than 3,000 counties across the United States. WhiteStar’s unique mapping software allows clients to leverage WhiteStar Grid®, WhiteStar Culture® and WhiteStar Parcels™ data to turn land descriptions within legal documents into high-fidelity digital maps.
“We look for management partners who have built differentiated software or data assets as beachhead value drivers, and we help them scale,” said Matthew Landon, Managing Partner at Contour Ridge. “Robert and his management team have developed both, which is a testament to their unwavering focus on customer needs. Contour Ridge is excited to share in the company’s mission to help clients digitize their land holdings to improve land analytics.”
The investment in WhiteStar is a continuation of Contour Ridge’s commitment to help founders take their software and data businesses to the next level of success. Equity capital for the investment came from CR Sweetwater Fund I, which makes buyout and control investments primarily in founder-led software, data and software-enabled service businesses across a variety of industries.
Peakview Partners served as exclusive financial advisor to WhiteStar, and Fairfield and Woods, P.C. served as legal counsel to the Company. Wright Connatser served as legal counsel to Contour Ridge.
About Contour Ridge
Contour Ridge is an investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys corporate Private Equity to profitable, founder-led businesses. The firm focuses on first institutional capital to help founders exit or create liquidity events. Contour Ridge seeks companies with great missions, culture, and people; and helps them scale by creating good jobs and better communities where it invests. Contour Ridge operates in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. Further information is available at www.contourridge.com
About WhiteStar
WhiteStar Corporation is the preeminent provider of infrastructure planning data and software products. Over the past decade, the Company has focused its efforts on helping oil & gas, pipelines, utility, green energy, and forestry services companies digitize and spatialize land data records. Seamless, accurate and current map data enables clients to create business opportunities and reduce risk. For more information, visit WhiteStar at www.whitestar.com
