GeoSpark, an AI location tracking startup, launches developer platform

Turning on location services of your mobile phone can consume plenty of battery. At times it is a foreground/background app that unnecessarily and constantly pings GPS to get an exact location. Features like ‘location history’ are also a huge drain on your cellphone’s battery. To help solve this problem and to give app developers a better location infrastructure, a startup called GeoSpark has launched an AI-driven location tracking platform that aims to reduce battery drainage by 90% compared to current location-service solutions.

Founders and funding

GeoSpark was founded by Manoj Adithya, an Aerospace engineer and Jothi Priyadhrshan, an AI & Machine learning expert. It was Manoj’s realization (about location services consuming a lot of his phone’s battery) during his visit to WebSummit in Lisbon in 2016 that helped him come up with the idea of a GeoSpark-like service. The company so far has raised €100k and plans to raise a seed round from Dutch VCs in coming weeks.

The startup is part of Rockstart, an-Amsterdam-based accelerator incubating and investing in Digital Health, Smart Energy, and Artificial Intelligence startups. GeoSpark shares how its technology works by using artificial intelligence. It pings the system only at the right time and place.

“GeoSpark uses AI to track location at the right time and place compared to traditional location tracking methods. GeoSpark has launched a developer platform where any developer can make use of this technology for free (up to 150 users) and a promotional price of 0.01$ per user, per month.“

https://twitter.com/manojadithya/status/965315146045362176

I talked to Manoj Adithya, CEO GeoSpark to understand how the technology works and what is that sets GeoSpark apart from other location services currently used by app developers.

What’s the fundamental difference between GeoSpark and traditional location services and how does the technology actually work? 

Adithya: “Traditional location tracking is based on time where the location is picked up every few seconds or based on significant location changes which put a lot of stress on the GPS which leads to a higher battery consumption. GeoSpark is built on top of a proprietary custom geofence technology which picks up location based on entry and exit regions with the help of our AI location prediction algorithm to fill gaps which are 99.9% accurate.”

Who are the current users and the type of apps they’re using GeoSpark for?

“Since our launch 3 weeks ago, we have over 200 apps that are currently testing our SDK in total serving over 25,000 users. We are seeing a lot of fleet management, food delivery, taxi apps like Uber, social apps that are the most common type of apps.”

What are you trying to achieve in next six months to a year?

“Our internal goals are pretty aggressive but in the next 6 months to a year, we are looking at serving 2.5 Million users through the apps built using GeoSpark.”

Strategy for growth

It appears that GeoSpark’s team plans to grow fast as it would allow it to enhance the predictive power of its AI-algorithms. However, it is yet to be seen how the team translates its plans and goals into market successes.

Rockstart, the startup accelerator backing GeoSpark has so far invested in 128 startups with €54 million raised in funding for these startups. Since the accelerator is focused on a few verticals like smart energy, Digital health, AI and web and mobile, it is able to better incubate the startups connecting them to key partners and investors.

In its AI-program, startups spend six months in ‘s Hertogenbosch, working along with mentors and partners. GeoSpark was also admitted as a very early stage startup, though it matured to become part of Rockstart’s six-month AI-accelerator program.