Type Private Headquarters Singapore Number of employees 50-100 Founded 2012 | Industry Technology Area served Global Founder Anil Mathews | |
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Number of locations San Francisco, London, Bangalore, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney | ||
Near is a privately held location intelligence platform founded in Nov 2012 having direct presence in Australia, Japan, South East Asia, India, Europe, and United States. Near is headquartered in Singapore.
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History
Near was founded as AdNear in Bangalore by Anil Mathews, who continues to serve as the CEO of the company. In its early days, the Near Platform used data from mobile towers and wifi networks to determine a person’s location. With the large scale adoption of GPS-enabled smart phones and devices, the current platform processes GPS-based location data as well. The Near Platform utilizing location-indexed data was launched in November 2012. In 2013, the company moved its headquarters from Bangalore to Singapore. The company has received funding from venture capital firms Sequoia Capital,JP Morgan Private Equity Group, Telstra Ventures and Global Brain Corporation to date. It raised $6.5 million in Series A funding and the $19 million raised in its 2014 Series B fundraising was the most raised by any company that year. In Fall 2015, the company changed its name from “AdNear” to “Near” to highlight its mission of building a scalable location-intelligence platform to power the next generation of location-aware products and services.
Near Platform
The Near Platform has experienced continuous growth and adoption since its inception. Platform users have included seven of the eleven largest automobile companies using the platform, as well as additional Fortune 100 companies. growth is tracked in terms of mobile audience profiles and number of places of interest (POIs). The platform has grown from nearly 100 million profiles in early 2014 to currently having over 1 billion profiled users across Australia, Japan, South East Asia and Europe. Furthermore, Near has nearly 65 million plus points of interest and region descriptions across markets in APAC, Japan, Europe and USA making it one of the largest location platforms. More than 300 global brands use Near to get intelligence about their consumers, and act on it. Use cases of location intelligence include mobile marketing, retail analytics, market research, consumer insights, macro-economic urban planning and others.
Allspark
In June 2016, Near announced the global launch of Allspark, the Mobile-First Audience Cloud that enables brands to visualize, engage and analyze audience data including their location, behavior, demographic and interest. This first-of-a-kind SaaS product is powered by the Near Platform and encapsulates Near’s expertise and best practices running all phases of mobile marketing for its clients. Allspark allows brands to curate their audience segments based on historical and real-time data, target them in real-time and also measure campaign impact.
Recognitions
The utility, relevance and business impact of Near’s platform and products has been recognized internationally. Listed below are awards of note: