Businesses across industries rely on accurate, dynamic location data to guide strategic decisions, whether that’s opening a new location, optimising supply chains, or understanding consumer behaviour. However, much of the available international point-of-interest (POI) data is outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent, particularly in emerging markets. This lack of quality location intelligence often results in billions of dollars in missed opportunities for companies.
Founded by Geoff Michener and Ryan Urabe in 2016, dataplor fills this gap by helping the global enterprise sector make better, faster, and smarter location-based decisions. The provider of global location intelligence, has picked up $20.5 million in a Series B round to scale its reach and deepen its footprint in this growing field.
The round was led by F-Prime, with strong support from Spark Capital, FFVC, Acronym Venture Capital, Two Lanterns Venture Capital, APA Ventures, dara5, and Alumni Ventures. This fresh capital injection will supercharge dataplor’s expansion efforts, allowing it to build out its suite of products and scale its operations across more markets globally. The company is doubling down on its mission: to become the most reliable source of privacy-forward, real-world location data for businesses navigating international growth and market intelligence. With this, the total funding raised by the company is $31.1 million, told dataplor exclusively to TFN.
What’s next for dataplor?
As global demand for high-quality location intelligence increases, dataplor is well-positioned to become a category-defining company. As told to TFN, the fresh investment will accelerate dataplor’s growth, expand its product offerings, and further scale its global location intelligence products.
How was the idea born?
As a big data entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience tackling global and governmental challenges, Geoff Michener excels at leading teams to innovate and modernise outdated industries with cutting-edge products.
While working at LivingSocial, Geoff experienced firsthand how incomplete or inaccurate location data can derail decision-making. He recognised that much of the world’s location data, especially in emerging markets, was unreliable or nonexistent. That insight led to the creation of dataplor alongside co-founder Ryan Urabe, to provide businesses with highly accurate, verified, and real-time location intelligence through POI data, and had expanded to include mobility data (i.e., foot traffic data).
Together, they built an MVP in Mexico, initially relying on local workers to verify local business information. This experience was pivotal in highlighting the critical role humans play in the data verification process, significantly improving data quality. This technology and human insight fusion became the foundation of dataplor’s globally scalable, high-accuracy solution.
Blending AI with human insight for data accuracy
While many geospatial data companies rely solely on machine learning, dataplor takes a hybrid approach. By combining AI, machine learning, and human validation, the company maintains one of the most accurate and comprehensive global datasets available today, even in historically under-mapped regions.
This powerful fusion of tech and human oversight ensures that dataplor’s clients get data that’s not just fast, but trustworthy. For example, dataplor’s insights help:
- EV networks forecast demand for chargers in real-time
- Insurers model property risk with pinpoint geospatial accuracy
- CPG companies find the right distributors in overlooked areas
Whether you’re building a new app, expanding retail presence, or improving logistics efficiency, dataplor’s intelligence feeds directly into enterprise workflows from growth and operations teams to geospatial analysts.
Built for a privacy-first world
At a time when data regulation and consumer privacy concerns are under intense scrutiny, dataplor sets itself apart with a privacy-first approach. The company ensures that no personally identifiable information (PII) is ever used in its platform. This gives its enterprise customers full regulatory confidence, especially as laws like GDPR, CCPA, and other international frameworks tighten compliance expectations across the board. For businesses looking to scale responsibly, dataplor’s ethical data stance is a welcome layer of security and trust.
As per the company, they recently launched its global mobility product, delivering monthly refreshed, privacy-compliant foot traffic data across international markets. Combined with its proprietary POI offerings, dataplor now offers businesses the most comprehensive view of real-world consumer behaviour on a global scale. As demand grows, the company hopes to continue developing tools that make global location intelligence more actionable and accessible.
Competitive landscape
The company stated “SafeGraph provides some location data in select EU countries, but their coverage is significantly more limited than ours, and they don’t offer the same level of mobility data.”
Unlike other providers offering either scale or accuracy, dataplor’s approach combines AI, machine learning, and human validation to deliver the most accurate, comprehensive, and current datasets, especially in historically under-mapped regions. Its proprietary technology continuously processes billions of data points, while local experts across 200+ countries and territories validate information for up-to-date, quality data.
dataplor also upholds a privacy-first approach, ensuring no personally identifiable information (PII) is ever used, providing the confidence enterprise clients need for regulatory compliance and ethical data practices. Currently, dataplor supports dozens of enterprise customers globally, including multiple Fortune 100 companies.
“Businesses around the world are realising how critical accurate, dynamic location data is to their strategy,” said Gaurav Tuli, Partner at F-Prime. “dataplor has built a truly differentiated solution that combines global scale, data quality, and compliance in a way we haven’t seen before. We’re thrilled to support their next phase of growth.”
“Our customers demand accurate, fresh, and globally compliant location data,” said Geoff Michener, Founder and CEO of dataplor. “With this new funding, we’re doubling down on our commitment to deliver the highest quality insights, while expanding our geographic coverage, enriching our product suite, and driving real business impact through seamless customer integration.”
