Mapping startup CloudMade raises $12.3M

CloudMade, a mapping data startup that hopes to fuel the current explosion of location-based application, has raised $12.3 million in a second round of funding.

Steve Coast, a cofounder of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company founded the OpenStreetMap community mapping project in 2004, and CloudMade draws its data from OpenStreetMap. Through application programming interfaces and other tools, CloudMade helps developers take advantage of OpenStreetMap’s geographical data to power their own location apps, then takes a share from the apps’ advertising revenue.

One of the big differences between CloudMade and other online map services like Google, according to chief executive Juha Christensen, is that CloudMade provides much more detailed, local information. For example, it’s more likely to include little walking trails that wouldn’t show up in a street map. CloudMade wants to continue building its specialized data so that it can deliver it to apps with niche audiences, Christensen said.

“We see a world of hundreds of thousands of apps in different verticals, more focused on everyone’s needs,” he said. The emphasis will shift away from “good but not great” location apps that serve a general audience.

The new funding was led by Greylock Capital. CloudMade previously raised $3.4 million from Sunstone Capital, which also participated in the new round.

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