SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hivemapper Inc., the creator of Hivemapper, a global, decentralized mapping network with a crypto-integrated dashcam, today announced an $18 million Series A round led by Multicoin Capital with participation from Craft Ventures, Solana Capital, Shine Capital, and Spencer Rascoff’s 75 and Sunny Ventures. Joining previous investors Spark Capital, Founder Collective, and Homebrew, they bring the company’s total financing to $23 million to date. The new funds will be used to support Hivemapper’s mainnet launch this summer, onboard more map contributors, and deliver the company’s first crypto-integrated dashcam, the Hivemapper Dashcam, which is available for pre-order for $449 effective immediately with shipping to begin in July 2022.
Billions of people around the world depend on maps and map data every day. Insurance providers, logistics companies, navigation and delivery apps, governments, NGOs, and more, rely on map APIs for their products and services. Maps are a critical part of the world’s technology infrastructure representing a $300B market in 2022 alone, yet the vast majority of them are owned and permissioned by only a handful of companies. Hivemapper inverts this paradigm by coordinating the creation of a new global map using a crypto-based network that makes mapping infrastructure open and universally accessible to all.
“Hivemapper is a decentralized global map owned and operated by the people. Using a simple dashcam, anyone can contribute mapping data to Hivemapper, which helps put underrepresented geographic regions on the map and keep them up to date,” said Ariel Seidman, co-founder and CEO, Hivemapper. “Mapping is an extremely complex, expensive, and time-consuming process. Only the largest and most capitalized tech companies in the world have the resources to do digital mapping, and even with all those resources street-level imagery in many parts of the world is only updated once every two years. This causes cascading logistical, municipal, and political problems. However, maps have the potential to be near real time. A community-owned map is the only way to continuously construct a living, breathing, ever-updating view of our world.”
The Hivemapper Network is a blockchain-based mapping network that incentivizes map coverage, freshness, and quality with crypto incentives and collective ownership. The network is composed of map contributors and map consumers. Map contributors are drivers and editors. Drivers capture 4K, street-level imagery using dashcams. Map editors then process that data, carry out quality assurance, and annotate contributor imagery. In exchange, both drivers and editors are rewarded with the network’s native token, HONEY, and the result is a state-of-the-art map that is constantly evolving, and that is collectively owned by its contributors. Map consumers leverage the map via a set of APIs that can call images, directions, geocoder searches, and more. Using Hivemapper’s Freshview feature, consumers can zoom in on an intersection and see a timelapse montage of that location. Businesses rely on up-to-date map data, including real-time imagery, to make informed decisions about logistics, deliveries and directions.
“Hivemapper has a structural cost advantage over mapping incumbents insofar as it doesn’t have to buy or maintain extortionately expensive mapping vehicles, nor does it have to pay people to drive those cars around. Instead, the network can simply identify regions that need to be mapped and put bounties on them, which are then claimed by a vast community of map contributors who are eager to claim those rewards for simply driving their daily commutes. As a result, Hivemapper creates unprecedented coverage, freshness, and quality in a radically more cost-effective way,” said Tushar Jain, Managing Partner, Multicoin Capital.
As part of this financing Amir Haleem, the co-founder and CEO of Nova Labs, joins Hivemapper’s board of directors. Nova Labs, formerly named Helium Inc, is the initial team behind the launch of the Helium Network. The Helium Network is now the world’s fastest-growing wireless network, as represented by over 680,000 Hotspots covering more than 52,000 cities worldwide. Previously, Amir served a long career in the videogame industry as CTO at gaming startup Diversion. He is a former world champion esports gamer, a co-founder of the popular esports community esreality.com and an expert in distributed systems deployment.
Hivemapper API is easily implemented, affordable, and already used by hundreds of forward-looking innovators and businesses across the globe. Map consumers can request map images, directions, or address geocoding with simple calls. In addition to coordinating the creation of the map, the Hivemapper Network also coordinates the exchange of map data between contributors and consumers using HONEY.
This round also includes support from notable angels, including Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO and Co-Founder of Solana, Raj Gokal, COO and Co-Founder of Solana, Amir Haleem, CEO and Founder at Nova Labs (formerly known as Helium), Nick Hammerschlag (formerly General Atlantic and Openview Ventures), David Rogier, CEO and Founder of Masterclass, Matt Rutler, Head of Talent at Masterclass, Luc Levesque, Shopify executive, Elie Seidman, former CEO of Tinder, Mark Williamson, COO at Masterclass, and Jaron Waldman, former Apple Maps and Rakuten executive.
To learn more about Hivemapper, please visit: https://hivemapper.com/.
The press kit with images and logos can be found here.
About Hivemapper
The Hivemapper Network is a global, crypto-mapping network that collects fresher, high resolution, and relevant map data in a more cost-effective way. Map contributors capture 4K street-level imagery with dashcams, carry out quality assurance, and annotate imagery. Map consumers leverage the map API across industries and use cases. Hivemapper is revolutionizing the mapping economy. To learn more about Hivemapper, please visit: https://hivemapper.com/.
About Multicoin Capital
Multicoin Capital is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies. Crypto networks and companies will create trillions of dollars of value over the next decade. But investing in tokens is fundamentally different than investing in companies. New tools, heuristics, and security measures are needed to responsibly invest in this ecosystem. We leverage our deep understanding of blockchain technology and crypto markets to deliver exceptional returns. For more information, visit: https://multicoin.capital.
