AREA360, creator of an innovative mobile location technology platform, today announced that it has closed a $3.5 million Series A round of financing, led by Madrona Venture Group. The company's products are built for large and frequently visited locations such as airports, hospitals and museums, enabling non-technical managers to easily create meaningful experiences based on location data, harnessing the power of beacons, GPS, WiFi and more. AREA360 products are already in use by more than 400 customers worldwide including Emirates Airlines, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.
While most beacon-related systems have been commercialized with a focus on marketing in the retail industry, AREA360 has developed a broadly applicable and elegant solution for any industry. Drawing on the company's rich history of connecting digital content to physical locations through the STQRY app, AREA360's advanced solutions now enable proximity based content delivery down to one to three meters, providing the tightest correlation of any beacon/location-aware platform on the market.
'We started AREA360 to give organizations the ability to enhance their customer experience by providing navigation as well as relevant information and unique opportunities along their path,' says Chris Smith, AREA360's founder and CEO. 'Using beacon and other location data, our platform enables customers to create a broad portfolio of useful services.'
'For example,' Smith continued, 'airports can deliver navigation to and from gates, along with a stop at the nearest Starbucks; museums bring to life that new piece of art by presenting a video on the artist's inspiration; and an operations manager can track their most valuable assets using real time data. To date, the response from customers has been overwhelming and we look forward to continuing to grow our business in the U.S. and internationally.'
AREA360 focuses on building easy to use, platform agnostic, cloud based products with API integrations that plug in to existing data ecosystems. One example is the company's SDK which gives developers the ability to build AREA360's capabilities into any application or service. The seamless integration into any organization's digital approach adds a highly valuable set of data to help improve an organization's customer experience and operations.
'Location-aware services provide a delightful customer experience that modern consumers will come to expect,' comments Paul Goodrich, managing director at Madrona Venture Group. 'Chris and his team have built an advanced platform that has already reached millions of consumers. We are excited to support them as they continue to expand their business and bring delightful navigation, content and other services to the next million.'
AREA360 was formed in 2012 and has business and development centers in Wellington, New Zealand and at their headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
About AREA360
AREA360 is the creator of an innovative mobile location technology platform for large and frequently visited locations such as airports, hospitals and museums that want to enhance the way their customers discover, connect and engage with what's around them. The platform allows any organization to easily create meaningful experiences based on accurate location data, harnessing the power of beacons, GPS, WiFi and more. AREA360 has more than 400 customers including airlines like Emirates, airports like Denver and Seattle-Tacoma International and museums like the Smithsonian and The Walt Disney Family Museum. AREA360 is based in Seattle. Learn more here.