Bath-based digital map and data platform firm Living Map is en route for strong growth after receiving investment of £2.6m to enable it to launch a new software package.
The move will enable its technology to be adopted by a much wider audience, including large indoor venues such as airports, retail sites, hospitals and ‘smart’ cities. 
The firm specialises in the ‘location of things’ with software that allows companies to produce their own customised maps which, unlike similar services, can operate in both outdoor and indoor spaces.
It can also be linked to sensors that locate and track people or assets in real time – for example to monitor high-value products moving along a production line or map air quality in different parts of a city.
The Princes Street company was launched in 2010 by urban design consultant Tim Fendley and has since produced systems for major visitor destinations such as Heathrow Airport and the MET Museum in New York as well as cities, including Cleveland in the US.
However, the new, off-the-shelf software package offers greater functionality and will make the technology accessible to a much wider audience.
The latest fundraising brought in £2.6m from London-based investment firm Committed Capital, asset management firm Mercia, which has offices across the UK, and other existing shareholders.
It follows an earlier round in May last year through Mercia’s EIS Funds and brings the total raised by the company to £3.8m.
Living Map chairman Adam Coxen said: “The funding will allow us to pursue our strategy to produce a fully integrated software as a service (SaaS) solution. The new software will provide hyper-accurate digital maps of complex spaces, allowing indoor and outdoor navigation and intelligent real-time location.
“It will open up new possibilities for use in smart cities, asset management, and industrial platforms.”
The global digital map market is expected to be worth $7.2bn by 2023. This growth is fuelled by the emergence of map technologies as an essential enabler of multiple consumer and business applications, from navigating cities to visualising live asset data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.
Committed Capital director Else Thomson added: “Living Map has gone through a period of transformation and is now an outstanding, well-resourced SaaS business with a unique offering.
“Committed Capital is pleased to be continuing to support the company through its next stage of development, both in terms of a £2.1m contribution to this funding round and ongoing board support.”
Mercia has again invested from its EIS funds under management. Investment director Julian Dennard said: “Customers expect to be able to use digital maps to find their way around but existing services do not work well indoors. This funding will help Living Map to roll out its new product which addresses this gap in the market and takes digital mapping to the next level.”
