Replica

Replica is an urban planning and simulation tool that helps city planners and transport operators assess current and future transport requirements. The firm gathers data including mobility metrics covering a variety of modes of transport, demographics, land use, and economic metrics from several sources including de-identified data gathered from smartphones of commuters.

Replica’s unique offering is a city simulation model that applies proprietary synthetic population and behavior models powered by AI and machine learning to create large-scale simulations or “digital twins” of the transportation and economic patterns of a city. In 2021, the firm claimed to have grown its activity-based travel demand simulator to cover the entire US, creating the first nationwide travel model of its kind.

Replica started off (in 2018) as a project of Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, to experiment with smart city projects. In September 2019, the project was spun-off from its parent as a standalone company, while Sidewalk Labs remained an investor in the firm.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the firm created a public dashboard and trend analysis tool providing weekly data on mobility, consumer spending, and public health to monitor the progression of the pandemic and the economic recovery.

Key customers and partnerships

As of February 2022, the firm partnered with public agencies and private firms in the US, including the Chicago Transit Authority, Illinois Department of Transportation, Caltrans, and Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Funding and financials

In April 2021, Replica raised USD 41 million in Series B funding led by Founders Fund. Replica planned to use this to expand its service offerings to include forecasting and scenario modeling tools.