UNL is an Amsterdam and Singapore-based smart addressing platform for location and navigation services. It gives anyone and anywhere with a unique and smart address to power the hyper-location-based economy.
Founded in 2018 by Xander van der Heijden, UNL provides any location with a universal and unique location ID. It adds a programmable layer to real-life locations. The company is building the Internet of Places and is serving as an infrastructure for the location-based service economy.
Raises €1.82M funding
Now, UNL has announced that it has secured $2 million (nearly €1.82 million) early-stage funding to build the Internet of Places. The investment comes from a slew of strategic backers co-led by the global leader in mapping and location solutions HERE Technologies and a Singaporean early-stage deep-tech VC fund Elev8.vc.
Other investors that took part in the funding round are SGInnovate, one of the first dedicated Deep Tech investors in Singapore and SOSV, a US-headquartered global VC fund and its program MOX (Mobile Only Accelerator) and Venturerock, an Amsterdam-based digital venture capital platform apart from an ecosystem of backers, founders, and venture builders.
Internet of Places: A heads up!
Detailing on the Internet of Places, it is a trusted network where real-life locations are combined with their smart UNL digital dopplegangers to power next-generation hyper-local experiences, micro-services, and applications on top of the UNL infrastructure. It handles all aspects ranging from sourcing, sourcing, administration of real-time contextual data to the governance of location-based transactions to machine-to-machine transactions.
With the investment, UNL intends to develop the Internet of Places core infrastructure and expand its operations into key international markets starting with Asia.
“UNL is a whole new way to think about locations. It’s about the economic impact and unlocking places to become the gravity points for location-based services”, said Xander van der Heijden, CEO and founder of UNL. “And it’s about economic inclusion – bringing 4 billion unaddressed people into the global digital economy.”
“UNL is building the Internet of Places, where we bring a new dimension to real-life places through content, context, and automation. Where locations become dynamic environments in which we experience, interact and consume. Everything, hyper-local and hyper-contextual”, added van der Heijden.
Main image picture credits: UNL
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