MappedIn charts success with big U.S. deal
KITCHENER — A startup that makes digital maps for big commercial buildings now counts one of the largest retail landlords in the United States among its clients.
MappedIn spent four months building the way-finding and 3D models for Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, which owns 210 properties, including 110 malls and 70 premium outlet malls. Simon is ranked as the second largest real estate investment trust in the U.S. by Bloomberg.
The Kitchener startup says Simon had just finished paying a consultant to complete a single 3D map of one mall. It did not like the product, which was expensive and difficult to change as stores opened, closed or expanded.
“So they figured out what we have always known, which is the biggest problem to solve when it comes to way-finding indoors, when it comes to mapping indoors, is maintainability,” said Hongwei Liu, co-founder and chief executive officer of MappedIn.
The data and software tools developed by MappedIn make it easy to update information on its 3D models and digital maps across multiple platforms — smartphones, tablets, desktops and digital kiosks in the malls.
Access to the maps and models is tailored to a client’s needs. MappedIn calls that “tiered access.” A number of people, including store managers, facility managers and the mall’s head of leasing, contribute to the maintenance of the 3D model and digital maps. That ensures the information stays current.
“Because bad data is worse than no data,” Liu said. “You don’t want a map that is wrong. I’d rather figure it out by hand.”
Simon said usage of the new maps for its properties has exceeded the targets it set.
“Simon is continually looking for opportunities to enhance the shopping experience and we quickly recognized the potential of this new technology to do just that,” Mikael Thygesen, the company’s chief marketing officer, said in a news release.
It took MappedIn four months to build the 3D models and maps for Simon’s malls.
Liu is confident the contract with Simon will put MappedIn on the radar for many other big landlords. Simon owns or has an interest in 264 million square feet of commercial buildings.
“The fact that Simon is deploying us across every single one of their retail properties in the U.S. means every single other operator has to at least look at us,” Liu said. “We suddenly become one of the options you must explore.”
The market that MappedIn — which is akin to Google Maps for the interior of the world’s buildings — is addressing is huge. There are three billion buildings on Earth, 10 million facility managers and it changes every five days, Liu said.
“That has always been our North Star — how do we solve that problem? And we realize it starts with having a great data model and great data tools,” Liu said.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which
funded the work to create the first version of the Internet, has estimated that it would take 10 per cent of the U.S. workforce at least 10 years to digitize the interior of the world’s buildings. And that’s only if they worked non-stop.
“Even if you did it once, it would be useless,” Liu said.
That’s because every facility manager in the world goes through a similar process. Working from blueprints, they make notes of changes to an existing building. They take a photo of the changes, and share that with leasing agents and owners, maybe even architects, contactors and insurers if the changes are large enough. Once everyone agrees on the changes, a new blueprint is made. In buildings continually changing, such as retail malls, the new blueprints are quickly out of date, and the process starts again.
MappedIn currently has 35 employees and plans to hire 10 more in the near future. It expects to have about 50 employees by year’s end.
“We are growing,” Liu said.