Cofounder explains why CartoDB just scored $23 million in funding

News came Thursday morning that Williamsburg-based mapping and data visualization company CartoDB raised $23 million in a Series B round led by Accel Partners and Salesforce Ventures.
Cofounder Javier de la Torre explained what the company plans to do with this money and why it’s staying in Brooklyn.

One very important vertical for us is banks.

“This is a great valuation from a market perspective. We’ve been growing very fast [and] we’ve seen more companies jump in to our platform,” he said by phone Thursday morning. “A lot of the resources will go to accelerate our product development, expand our teams and [add a] whole new area when it comes to location analytics.”
CartoDB allows people to make tremendously rich data visualization maps, and has been used by the Los Angeles Times, the BBC and the Guardian to name a few. Its move is now toward analyzation of maps and data, said de la Torre, and to that end the company has hired a data scientist and has a beta program. This area will absorb a hefty part of the growth in product and staff, he said.

So happy to announce we’ve closed our Series B funding! Thanks to everyone! http://t.co/G6xJWLF8Sz pic.twitter.com/y0ZU0IqM4C

— CARTO (@CARTO) September 10, 2015

“Using location data, companies can find things out like demographics and where there’s potential to have more customers than the ones they have,” de la Torre said. “One very important vertical for us is banks. They analyze credit card transaction data. We want to help them understanding patterns of consumption when it comes to location not just to a particular product.”
The company does have plans to relocate from Williamsburg, but with its new money, it’s not moving to a Manhattan tower, it’s moving to … Bushwick.
“We don’t need an iconic office building,” de la Torre said. “We think there’s going to be a lot of growth in companies in Bushwick and we can enjoy a much bigger space and have an outdoor space. And we’ll be able to barbecue. How many companies in New York can say they can barbecue?”