Telecommunications group SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a $164m round on Wednesday for Mapbox, the US-based creator of a location and mapping platform for software developers.
Venture capital firms Foundry Group, DBL Partners and Thrive Capital also participated in the round along with DFJ Growth, the growth-stage arm of VC firm DFJ.
Mapbox provides map, direction and location search services, sourced from 200 million miles of anonymised sensor data, for a network of 900,000 registered developers to use in mobile, web, and virtual and augmented reality apps covering areas such as mobile devices and connected cars.
The funding will support international growth, with a particular focus on Europe, China and Southeast Asia. Mapbox also plans to expand its Unity SDK team to cover immersive reality modelling, as part of an overall drive to increase its gaming, virtual and augmented reality investment.
In addition, Mapbox intends to establish and grow an automotive segment of its business that will apply its deep learning and vision technology to areas such as autonomous vehicles and in-car navigation.
Rajeev Misra, chief executive of SoftBank Investment Advisors, said: “Location data is central and mission critical to the development of the world’s most exciting technologies, from autonomous transportation to robotics through to AR and VR.
“Mapbox has a unique platform using decentralised, anonymised sensors to map the world live. By investing in Mapbox, we are investing in the foundational infrastructure for the next stage of the information revolution.”
The round increased Mapbox’s total funding to approximately $227m, Foundry Group having invested $10m for its 2013 series A round.
DFJ Growth led the company’s $52.6m series B round in June 2015, investing alongside Foundry Group, DBL Partners, Thrive Capital, Pritzker Group, Promus Ventures and private investor Jon Winkelried.