GeoSpock Limited (GeoSpock), the UK tech firm that has developed breakthrough database technology enabling extreme-scale, real-time geo-spatial and multi-dimensional big data applications, has today announced the appointment of Dr Jonathan Milner to its board. Dr Milner has been an investor in GeoSpock since its foundation and will work with the board and executive teams to deliver the next phase of growth.
Dr Milner brings with him a wealth of experience in the foundation, growth, and scale-up of businesses, the most notable of which, Abcam, he founded in 1998 after gaining a doctorate in molecular genetics. He identified the potential market opportunity to use an innovative e-commerce engine to supply high quality antibodies, to support research in areas such as genomics, proteomics, and diagnostics. Abcam floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2005 valued at £57.5 million, and reached £1 billion in value in 2013 under his leadership. Dr Milner is an avid supporter of the UK start-up scene, having invested in over thirty companies in recent years. His support of the life science sector led to him receiving the Outstanding Contribution accolade at the European Medical Science Awards in 2014.
GeoSpock also announces today that it has graduated from the Techstars accelerator, following demonstration of its initial GeoSpock database product to over 200 investors and 700 attendees at the Genesis Theatre in London on Friday February 20th. The audience gasped as 100 million constantly moving locations around the globe were searched and found in 4.5 seconds, over fifteen times faster than the market leading geosearch database. The company later pitched to government officials, tech industry leaders, and forty investors at the Pitch 10 event, held at Number 10 Downing Street.
Based on progress made with industry partners and interest from investors, the company has initiated a Series A funding round, aimed at raising at least £2.5 million from angel, corporate, and VC funding sources.
The funds will be used to: (a) market GeoSpock to organizations requiring extreme-scale, real-time database storage and querying solutions; (b) implement projects with existing early adopters in the mapping, logistics, security, and insurance sectors; and (c) further develop the core database technology to handle geo-tagged, multi-dimensional data for applications into the rapidly growing mobile data and internet of things market sectors.
GeoSpock is widely applicable, and has stolen a march upon existing geospatial database technologies, which suffer from performance degradation and increased running costs as data sizes grow. Partners can now store, and concurrently query all current and historical data efficiently, while consistently maintaining sub-second response times regardless of how large the data set grows.
GeoSpock technology is fundamentally enabling to anyone who wishes to store, track, and query a network of rapidly updating location-tagged objects. This opens up broad applications in areas such as logistics, to maximize mobile fleet inventory via real-time link-up to other third-party networks such as retail vendors as well as tracking concurrent objects of interest (for example people, vehicles), and to monitor behavioral patterns for risk assessment in both insurance and security applications.
Commenting on the board appointment, Dr Jonathan Milner, angel investor and non-executive director of GeoSpock, said:
“I am thrilled to be joining the board of this exciting company and am looking forward to do what I can to help it achieve its ambition of becoming a ubiquitous provider of database-as-a-service in the big data era. I believe the company’s technology has applications in multiple fast-growing sectors including e-commerce, security, and healthcare.”
Dr Darrin Disley, chairman, lead investor, and co-founder of GeoSpock, commented:
“I am delighted to welcome Jonathan Milner to the board. His track record speaks for itself, and having worked with him to successfully build Horizon Discovery Group plc from IP to IPO, I look forward to working with him and the executive team to deliver on the very promising start made by the company since its inception.”
Commenting on the initiation of fund-raising, Steve Marsh, CEO and co-founder of GeoSpock, said:
“We have big things planned for the future of GeoSpock, including applying our technology to address the multi-dimensional big data needs of facial recognition and genomics. This next round of funding will allow us to continue executing upon our vision of creating a disruptive company, focused on tackling the big technology problems of our time.
We expect to complete fundraising by the end of Q2, enabling us to capitalize upon the increased interest generated by our entry into the Techstars program, as well as the positive responses we have received from our early adopter partners.”