Mapper Launches Industry’s First On-Demand and Continuously Updated Maps for Machines

Mapper, the high-precision mapping company for machines, today unveiled its first product: On-Demand Maps. The offering provides developers and autonomous vehicle companies with a machine-readable map of the location of their choosing to fit their business needs. On-Demand Maps provide digital, up-to-date representations of streets and freeways for applications such as self-driving vehicles, advanced driver assistance, insurance and improved urban planning.

Mapper has already developed its first machine-readable map covering the entire city of San Francisco (1,200 miles of drivable roads). The availability of the San Francisco map and new On-Demand Map service follows the company’s $8 million seed funding round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures in late 2017.

Mapper is the first end-to-end provider of machine-readable maps: collecting the geographical data, converting the data into high-quality maps and providing the maps to its developer partners at scale via a subscription service. Mapper is building the world’s largest repository of precise and up-to-date, 3D machine-readable base maps for autonomous use cases and beyond, giving customers the ability to dictate which cities they need mapped to move their businesses forward. Mapper’s maps capture the underlying geometry of the streetscapes and locations of all the lanes and traffic systems with high accuracy.

Mapper’s customers are spread across a spectrum of verticals ranging from passenger vehicle manufacturers and truck manufacturers, to companies building robo-taxis and self-driving delivery vehicles. Vehicle manufacturers are primarily interested in advanced driver assistance features to improve the safety and experience of the driver, whereas trucking companies are especially interested in using Mapper to reduce the stress of long-haul truckers without compromising safety. On the other end of the spectrum, shared mobility services are gaining a lot of traction in urban areas. Self-driving taxis and delivery vehicles provide improved service at affordable price points in areas where demand for logistic services far supersedes the supply. Mapper’s up-to-date and accurate maps serve as a digital infrastructure for safe, efficient and reliable automation across all these verticals.

“Autonomous vehicle developers aim to maximize the number of miles between manual disengagements where a safety driver must take over operation,” said Nikhil Naikal, CEO and co-founder of Mapper. “A primary reason why a safety driver might take over is a stale map that no longer represents what’s truly happening on the roads. Our On-Demand Maps capture the changes to the streetscapes for our customers’ autonomous vehicles and enable safe and efficient operation.”

For more about Mapper, please visit www.mapper.ai.

About Mapper
Mapper, headquartered in San Francisco, is building the world’s largest repository of up-to-date, machine-readable base maps. It has created a globally scalable ecosystem for on-demand creation, validation and maintenance of centimeter-accurate maps. Mapper's cutting-edge technology allows it to collect map data with a 100% coverage guarantee on public roads with updates as often as daily.

Mapper’s product, On-Demand Maps, delivers machine maps to its partners to more rapidly develop and productize autonomous solutions.

Mapper was founded in 2016 by Dr. Nikhil Naikal, a robotics expert from UC Berkeley who was part of Carnegie Mellon’s 2007 Darpa Grand Challenge Team, and Dr. Alonso Patron, a computer vision expert from Oxford University. Drs. Naikal and Patron were previously colleagues at FlyBy Media Inc. (acquired by Apple). Together they have recruited a team of robotics, machine learning, hardware and systems engineers and executives who formerly worked at ride-sharing and automotive companies.

Please visit www.mapper.ai to learn more.

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