near

Originally headquartered in Singapore before moving to the US in 2021, Near provides a suite of location data enrichment and insight solutions for location-based and data-driven marketing. In 2017, Near launched Allspark, a cloud-based AI platform, which provides users access to 1.6 billion anonymized, location-based profiles of users across 70 million locations in 100+ countries that are gathered sources from mobile carriers, data partners, carriers, and WiFi operators. In May 2022, the firm launched Pinnacle, an interactive visual interface providing location-based intelligence for 1.2 million locations in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 

The firm’s competitive edge is its use of patented machine learning algorithms and other inferential AI technology, which it uses to merge customer details to create unified individual profiles, without needing a customer name or real identifiers of any kind. The firm claims that its unique approach enables it to create specific profiles with a high degree of confidence in a privacy-compliant manner. 

The firm has expanded its geographical presence via acquisitions, which include Teemo, a French location intelligence platform, to grow its presence in Europe (November 2020) and UberMedia, an ad attribution and location data service, to expand its presence in the US (April 2021).   

Key customers and partnerships

The firm solutions are used by 200+ global brands across a wide range of industries  including 60% of the Fortune 500 across more than 20 countries. As of August 2022, its customers include News Corp, MetLife, Mastercard, McDonald’s, and Ford.

Funding and financials

In May 2022, the firm announced that it planned to list on the Nasdaq via a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) KludeIn I Acquisition Corp and was expected to generate USD 268 million in gross proceeds with a valuation of ~ USD 1 billion. The firm raised USD 100 million in a committed equity financing facility from CF Principal Investments. The firm also stated that it achieved revenue of USD 33 million in 2020 and was estimated to achieve a revenue of USD 46 million and USD 63 million in 2021E and 2022E, respectively. The company also estimated its gross profit margin to be 72% for 2022E while expecting its EBITDA to continue to remain negative until 2024.