CloudMade

Products

CloudMade’s products are intended for car manufacturers and suppliers. The company offers a range of software solutions which include:

Predictive Learning System - a proprietary machine learning platform used by connected car OEMs to enable personalized user experiences. The platform builds on CloudMade’s Smart Data, Hybrid Data and Mapsafe technologies to enable machine learning in any connected car. CloudMade claim that their system is unique because it distributes learning and predictions, using the relatively low cost and powerful cloud systems like Amazon AWS from which to run machine learning processes, whilst carrying out all predictions in the car.

Connected Car Content - a content aggregation platform created by CloudMade that aggregates location based content from multiple different sources and makes it available within a connected car. The system is built using CloudMade’s Hybrid Data technology to manage synchronization of data sets between the cloud and the car.

Car and Driver Analytics - a data collection and aggregation system that sits inside a car where it collects data from the vehicle’s CAN bus, then transmits the data to the cloud.

Customers

Renault-Nissan have announced several products, including My Driving Partner technology, that will be built using CloudMade’s Predictive Learning System.

My Driving Partner is designed to learn the individual driving habits and to follow up with customized advice to promote driving that is smoother and more relaxing.

By learning driver’s habits and storing dangerous spots along the user’s most frequently used routes, My Driving Partner can warn the driver of a risky situation and provide advice as he or she approaches the potential hazard.

Jaguar Land Rover is currently working on self-learning car technology, using CloudMade’s software solutions.

JLR self-learning car learns driver behaviour and patterns delivering a personalised automated driving experience. It uses data sources such as driving habits, weather and location. It also integrates with the driver's mobile. The smart assistant provides helpful reminders about the days events. It anticipates upcoming journeys and notifies the driver about refueling. In-car call patterns help the car predict whom the driver would like to call next.

At Mondial de l'Automobile 2016 (the Paris Motor Show) Faurecia - the global supplier of car interiors and seating systems - announced their Cockpit of the Future, which will use advanced sensors arrays, precise actuators and machine learning powered by CloudMade.

According to CEO Juha Christensen CloudMade works with companies in US, Europe and Asia.

Patent

In 2013 Centralized location storage system and method were patented by Nick Black, Jim Brown and Cragg Nilson on CloudMade’s behalf. The invention enables a user to save locations (e.g., addresses, business names, landmarks, etc.) to a central storage location from within third party applications and then automatically see saved location information on registered client devices, including navigational devices. Third party applications can include non-map related applications.

Leaflet

Leaflet is a widely used open source JavaScript library used to build web mapping applications. First released in 2011, it supports most mobile and desktop platforms, supporting HTML5 and CSS3. Along with OpenLayers, and the Google Maps API, it is one of the most popular JavaScript mapping libraries and is used by major web sites such as FourSquare, Pinterest and Flickr.

Leaflet was developed by Vladimir Agafonkin and began life in 2010 as "Web Maps API", a JavaScript library for the CloudMade mapping provider, where Agafonkin worked at the time. In May 2011, CloudMade announced the first release of Leaflet, built from scratch but using parts of the old API code.

Early products

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.

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.

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.

Notable milestones

In 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.

In early 2009 CloudMade added Christian O. Petersen as VP Community and launched its platform to mobile and web developers signing up over 2,000 developers since.

Shortly after The British newspaper, The Guardian launched a new site built using CloudMade mapping and geo services.

In May 2009 Useful Networks announced their mapNinja app for the iPhone supports out-of-box connectivity to four different mapping providers including CloudMade.

In June 2009 CloudMade added Juha Christensen as Chairman & CEO.

Cloud Made Ltd (UK subsidiary) recorded a loss for 2008 of £1,426,585, with a loss for 2009 of £2,149,259, 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.

February 2010 – CloudMade Takes Best Emerging start up prize at Mobile World Congress.

On October 5, 2010, OpenStreetMap founder and CloudMade cofounder Steve Coast resigned from all positions within the company. In November, Steve announced that he had accepted a position as Principal Architect at Microsoft’s BingMobile.

In July 2010 CloudMade received a $12.3 million Series B funding round with Greylock Partners and existing investor Sunstone Capital.

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.

CloudMade's map renderings, combined with the OpenLayers JavaScript interface, have recently been used on the White House's Delivering on Change map.

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.

In 2015 CloudMade makes it to CIOReview’s top Automotive Technology Solution Providers list for its expertise in user experience design for consumer mobility solutions, ranging from connected cars to on-dash navigation to smartphone applications to wearables, spanning all phases of design from early conceptual thinking through to research, field testing, focus groups, execution and refinement.