The Irish software firm is a major player in mapping software and services, writes John Collins
Irish software company Mapflow, which develops what it calls "location intelligent solutions", recently nabbed more than $12 million (€9 million) in funding from a US investor who co-founded one of the pioneering software companies in this area. It's little wonder that chief executive Richard Bryce is in effusive form as he explains what it is that Mapflow does and hints at some of its future plans.
"At the heart of it, what we offer is mapping software and services," says Bryce. "The business is about providing solutions based on location intelligence."
The possibilities of what can be achieved by adding location information to other data has been proven in the last two years with the success of services such as Google Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth. By making the mapping data available to third parties, a range of "mash-up" services has been created by Web developers - everything from the live position of Dart trains to the location of the best pubs in Dublin.
Although Mapflow sells mapping data to its clients, most notably MyHome.ie, going up against the giants of the internet to offer cheap or free maps is not something Bryce has interest in.
"If all you want is a map with a red dot in it - you know what, just go to Google," says Bryce. "We don't try to, and we never will, try to compete in that space."
Bryce says the company benefits from the use of maps in web applications because it ensures its business customers have a greater appreciation of the power of geographic information. Although the company has built up a broad range of clients in Ireland, including O2, the AA and ComReg, it is in Britain and Europe that it has achieved most success by focusing on selling to insurance companies and transport organisations.
Sales to large insurers such as the recently announced €250,000 deal with the British arm of US insurance giant St. Paul Travelers are being driven by the impact of climate change on the insurance business, according to Bryce.
Traditionally, insurers have underwritten policies at a macro level - in the UK assuming the same risk for all homes in a single postcode, while in Ireland insurers usually divide the country into 40 or 50 distinct rating areas. Using flood models and historic data about flooding combined with the exact location of a home or premises, Mapflow allows insurers to look at the risks at a micro level.
"By using our technology and our knowledge of the underlying geographic data, we're able to say to insurers we can help them rate a policy at an individual house or building level," says Bryce.
Bryce is conscious that some consumers may see it as a case of big business using technology to penalise the individual by reducing the insurer's risk and increasing the individual's policy. But he says his experience with insurance companies in the UK flips that argument on its head.
"Previously a lot of people couldn't get insurance because the insurance companies didn't understand their risk," he says. "With our tools, they can make a very knowledgeable decision about the risk and give a fair price for that."
A large part of the work the company has done around transport has been on road-tolling initiatives in the UK. Given the success of the London congestion charge and Mapflow's work with Transport for London, could its software provide some relief for long-suffering Dublin commuters?
"Could we solve the M50 problem tomorrow? Absolutely not," he says with a laugh. Bryce also points out that there were a number of unique factors at play in London, including an already high uptake of public transport, a commitment to divert revenue into improving public transport and the fact that mayor of London Ken Livingstone had a political mandate to introduce the congestion charge. "Dublin looks very different to that," Bryce says diplomatically.
Mapflow has been working in the UK on more sophisticated charging models that would charge road users based on the time and distance they travel rather than simply charging everyone who enters a particular zone. Closer to home the company has worked on trials with the European Space Agency and the Dublin Transportation Office to see how effective satellite data is for road charging.
"If you are saying that I am going to charge you £1 to drive from Merrion Square to Ballsbridge and it doesn't get that right, then you have real problems," says Bryce. "Our expertise is about making that satellite positioning accurate enough to be able to charge for it."
The third area of the company's business is location-based services - something which was expected to be huge in the late 1990s but which has yet to take off. Although, in the US, in-car and on-foot navigation systems and services to improve the management of field-based workforces have taken off, Europe continues to lag in this area.
That's largely because European mobile phone operators have not embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chips in handsets, which provides the detailed location information needed for such services. In the US, on the other hand, the government mandated operators to be able to provide such information in the case of an emergency - the so-called 911 mandate.
"We invested a considerable amount of money around location-based services and built some business around that," says Bryce. "That's been a tough market and it's been through several iterations."
One of the deals Mapflow has won in the space is with AA Ireland, which has installed GPS systems on all its trucks to make dispatch decisions more efficient. Despite the lag in uptake, Bryce says he believes location-based services will be worth $1 billion in the US alone in the next couple of years.
Bryce is also confident that the support of new investor Seán O'Sullivan, a co-founder of geographic information systems pioneers MapInfo, can help the Dublin-headquartered company grab a decent slice of that pie. Rather than rushing to enter new markets, though, Bryce says the immediate plan is to develop a new product based around Mapflow's expertise with GPS technologies - but for the moment he is not saying much more than that.
"It comes out of our existing business and plays to our strengths and competencies, but it's probably 12 months before we have a view on how big or how real the market opportunity is."
