Placecast offers location-data products focused on resolving duplicate venue listings and unifying place identifiers across location-based services. Its Match API is a free, open system that translates and maps IDs from multiple providers to a single canonical location, disambiguating addresses and consolidating duplicates. The Match API has been in place for more than a year and has processed millions of location records worldwide. Several location-based companies, including WCities, Socialight, Urban Mapping, and Buzzd, were testing the API at the time of the article. Placecast also debuted ShopAlerts, a service that sends text messages to nearby consumers to drive retail foot traffic, and operates a location-based advertising platform that segments audiences and targets ads. Alistair Goodman is cited as Placecast’s CEO and founder, and he emphasizes correct venue identification as foundational for location-based advertising. Placecast offers a location-based marketing platform that weaves together location information and other data from audiences across the web, mobile, and email using proprietary algorithms. The platform analyzes inventory, segments audiences, and targets ads to maximize relevance for advertisers and publishers. Placecast manages publishers’ web and mobile inventory and serves targeted ads and messages into outgoing emails. The company is expanding into mobile web capabilities for retailers to enable opt-in, location-based alerts. These mobile alerts are intended to drive in-store traffic for retailers. The startup recently raised funding to accelerate progress on this technology.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Mar 2010