Electronic mapping firm TerraGo raising $4.4M - Boston Business Journal:

eragywaqer.wordpress.com
million — money the startup will use for produc developmentand marketing. The Atlanta-based geographic information system technologies firm has developed software that convertzsgeospatial data, such as electronic maps, from various sources into an Adobe PDF-baser format that can be shared via the Web, mobile devic e or desktop. TerraGo noted in a May 12 filingv thatit has raisedabout $3.4 millio of the$4.4 million it is seeking. The lead investof in the new roundis Maryland-basecd LLC, which invests in life sciences, oil and gas, telecommunications and alternative energy. RedShift Ventures, an Va.-based early-stage venture capital firm and Arlington, Va.
-basefd , a venture capital firm that supportz the and other intelligence also invested. All three firms are prior investorsin TerraGo’s software helps businesses “take complex maps and imagees and extends those out to people that do not have any GIS said Chris Watson, vice presideny of marketing and business development. The , for instance, uses TerraGoo technology to equip soldiers with georeferencedbattlefielx maps. When utilities are field workersneed up-to-date details on infrastructure, outageds and current conditions.
TerraGo software, the company said, provides instanft access to geospatial data for faster response times and enables utilities to more efficientlu manage andmaintain infrastructure. Thanks to GPS devicesx and Web applications likeGoogle Earth, consumers are getting comfortablw with and savvy about using geospatial data, Watsonb said. That’s feeding the demande for business uses ofgeospatial data, she TerraGo customers include government agencies and companies that create geospatial data, said Benjamin Scherrey, who has done softwarr work for TerraGo and is chief systemws architect at Ltd.
By enabling easy and quickl sharing, Scherrey said, TerraGo’s software “enables the customer s to get a whole lot more value out of theid geodata than they otherwisw wouldhave gotten.” The technology has “some compelling and the potential customer base is big, said Alan Taetle, partned at Atlanta venture firm . “It’s just a questionb of what the uptake is and howquicmk [customers] adopt,” Taetle said. RedShift, with $220 millionn under management, continues to invest in TerraGo becauses of the management team and thegeospatiakl sector’s potential, RedShift General Partner Mark Frant z said.
“What the company is doing,” Frantz said, “ies really empowering the enterprise, like Google Earth has empowerec ... the masses.” The bulk of TerraGo’s nearly 800 customersd are in the defense andintelligence industries, utilitied and natural resource management sectors. It is hopin to target the energy companies, engineering firmds and state andlocal governments. Those markets “are ripe for TerraGo’s software because they have a large volumeof non-GIS-savvyy users who need that information to do theidr jobs,” Watson said.
TerraGo’sa revenue grew 13 percent in the first quarter compared with the prior Core software sales spiked39 percent. “Wde ... saw more customers purchasinygmultiple products, including several of our server-baser solutions that help enterprise organizationws create geospatial applications that enable grab-and-go access to the lates geospatial intelligence,” TerraGo CEO Richard Cobb said in a TerraGo, which has raised about $10 million since its launch five yearsx ago, closed a $6.3 million Series A round in 2007. That rounrd was led by RedShift Ventures, with participation from CNF Investmentdand In-Q-Tel.
In-Q-Tel is an active investorr andtheir backing, Taetle said, is validation that “thew three-letter agencies have an interest in the product.”