CloudMade
 | |
| Private | |
| Industry | maps |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Headquarters | London (United Kingdom), Kiev (Ukraine), Stuttgart (Germany) and Menlo Park, CA, USA |
Key people | Nick Black, Juha Christensen, Jorgen Smidt, Arnon Dinur, Steve Coast, |
Number of employees | 42 |
| Website |
cloudmade |
CloudMade is a company which produces APIs, rendered maps, and geographic-related services. Unlike many other companies in the same field, CloudMade has focused on using Creative Commons-licensed OpenStreetMap data, and was cofounded by the founder of OpenStreetMap, Steve Coast and long-time OSM contributor Nick Black.[1] Many of its products compete with Google Maps by providing APIs for web sites, applications, and devices to use the rendered map data.
CloudMade is distributed between London (United Kingdom), Kiev (Ukraine), Stuttgart (Germany) and Menlo Park, CA (USA), and works closely with development partner, Cogniance.
Offering
CloudMade's Style Editor allows users to edit the color scheme and layers visible in web-accessible maps – allowing customization that Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and other large-scale competitors have not provided. Like OpenStreetMap itself, CloudMade uses Mapnik to render its maps, though the rest of the software stack departs from OSM's system.[2]
The combined CloudMade and OneStepAhead platform allows consumers to access map data, points of interest (POI), routing, navigation and other data around their location even when not connected to the Internet. Its hybrid architecture also supports online connectivity, enabling the amalgamation of additional POIs and streaming of live data services, such as weather forecasts or traffic data.[3]
Other offerings include a data marketplace, with commercial point-of-interest datasets layered on top of the open licensed OpenStreetMap maps. Some such datasets are charged for, with CloudMade taking a commission. Meanwhile, the "Sponsored POI" concept involves advertising companies paying money to app and web developers, for inclusion of their in-map clickable points-of-interest, as a form of location based advertising.
History
Cloud Made Ltd (UK subsidiary) recorded a loss for 2008 of £1,426,585,[4] with a loss for 2009 of £2,149,259,[5] and a profit of £93,338 for 2010. The latter figure was on Turnover of nil, and was entirely due to an inter-company interest receipt of £360,750 and the write-off of interest of £426,273 that had been due on investor loans.[6] On October 5, 2010, OpenStreetMap founder and CloudMade cofounder Steve Coast resigned from all positions within the company.[7] In November, Steve announced that he had accepted a position as Principal Architect at Microsoft’s Bing Mobile.[8]
In July 2010 CloudMade received a $12.3 million Series B funding round with Greylock Partners and existing investor Sunstone Capital.[9]
In December 2010 CloudMade acquired all assets of the navigation software company OneStepAhead and announced that the new technology would be used to offer customizable developer tools and location-based services for iPhone and Android. OneStepAhead was closed in early 2013.[10]
CloudMade's map renderings, combined with the OpenLayers JavaScript interface, have recently been used on the White House's Delivering on Change map.[11][12]
Cloud Made Ltd recorded a loss for 2011 of £260,401 on Gross Sales of Nil, and a loss of £8,771,189 on Gross Sales of Nil for 2012. The latter reflected the write off of £8,099,495 of loans to subsidiary companies in the Cloud Made Group.[13]
Notable milestones
- March 2008 – CloudMade added Nick Black as Co-Founder & Head of Products and Steve Coast as Co-Founder. CloudMade received $3.78M (€2.4M) in Series A funding.[1]
- January 2009 – CloudMade added Christian O. Petersen as VP Community.[1]
- February 2009 – CloudMade launched its platform to mobile and web developers and signed up over 2,000 developers since.[14]
- The British newspaper, The Guardian recently launched a new site built using CloudMade mapping and geo services.[14]
- May 2009 – Useful Networks announced their mapNinja app for the iPhone supports out-of-box connectivity to four different mapping providers including CloudMade.[15]
- June 2009 – CloudMade added Juha Christensen as Chairman & CEO.[1]
- February 2010 – CloudMade Takes Best Emerging start up prize at Mobile World Congress.[16]
- July 2010 – CloudMade received $12.4M (€9.5M) in Series B funding.[1]
- January 2011 – CloudMade acquired the assets of OneStepAhead AG.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "CloudMade" (profile). CrunchBase. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
- ↑ Mishkovskyi, Andrii. "How Python is Used at CloudMade". CloudMade. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ↑ "GIS Location Technology – CloudMade Acquires OneStepAhead". Gisuser.com. 2011-01-07. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
- ↑ Companies House Annual Accounts, 1 Oct 2009.
- ↑ Companies House Annual Accounts, 15 Sep 2010.
- ↑ Companies House Annual Accounts, 22 Sep 2011.
- ↑ Coast, Steve. "I've resigned from CloudMade". Retrieved 18 October 2010.
- ↑ "I’m working at Microsoft and we’re donating imagery to OpenStreetMap!". Steve Coast. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010. Retrieved 23 November 2010.
- ↑ "CloudMade Gets Funding to Expand Map Service" (news). Wireless Week. 2010-07-27. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
- ↑ "CloudMade Buys Navigation Software Startup OneStepAhead". TechCrunch. 2011-01-07. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
- ↑ "Delivering on Change". The White House. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
- ↑ "Cogniance helps CloudMade find its way to success". Cogniance. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
- ↑ Companies House Annual Accounts, 25 Nov 2013.
- 1 2 "Geo Industry Veteran Marc Prioleau Joins CloudMade as CEO". Business Wire. Forbes. 2009-03-31. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
- ↑ Sellers, Dennis (2009-03-09). "Useful Networks announces mapNinja for the iPhone". Macsimum News. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
- ↑ "CloudMade Honored at Mobile World Congress". Sci-Tech Today. Retrieved 2012-12-02.