Mapbox locates $164 million in fundraising round

Mapbox, a location and mapping data company that recently grew its presence in D.C., announced it raised $164 million in Series C funding Tuesday. The funding will help the company build out features for cars, and expand offerings in augmented and virtual reality.

After a record-breaking series B round, the company has more than tripled the amount that it brought in with this latest raise. The SoftBank Vision Fund led the round, with participation from existing investors including the Foundry Group, DFJ Growth, DBL Partners, and Thrive Capital. 

The company takes in more than 200 million miles of data a day and uses this data not only to make maps for mobile applications, but to customize to fit the needs of the organizations they work for. Mapbox works with well-known clients such as Snapchat, The Weather Channel, Tableau, IBM and DoorDash, and is able to customize its map data to work differently for each organization, to tell the weather or update with your friends’ locations, for example.

Part of the company’s drive to expand has to do with a vision for their product that goes beyond just servicing the companies they work with.

“We are mapping and measuring everything,” said CEO Eric Gundersen in a statement. “The SoftBank team understands that location data is transformational to every industry. Additional capital accelerates our speed of capturing the market. This is a step function move that will transform the fundamentals of how everything — people and goods — move through our world.”

Mapbox’s other goals include developing an automotive unit to tackle the popular question of how to use location data in autonomous driving, and using some of its technology to help develop games that use virtual and augmented reality.

The company expanded its D.C. presence earlier this year after outgrowing its original location at the garage at 14th St., and is now planning to use some of the money from this new fundraising round to expand its international presence, especially in China, Southeast Asia and Europe.