Thomas Jefferson wasn’t thinking about the modern analytics market when he coined the phrase “commerce with all, alliance with none”, but the approach has proven remarkably effective for Factual Inc., a startup that raised $35 million in funding today to take its growth strategy to the next level. More engineers will be brought aboard and marketing operations will be grown to help drive the adoption of its location data repository,  which is already one of the most widely used of its kind.

Global Places contains records about more than 18 million of businesses, government offices and private residential buildings throughout 50 countries that are exposed through a neatly organized interfaced specifically aimed at allowing easy access by third party services. Looking up a popular deli on a travel app that uses Factual’s data can thus instantly yield not only its address but also relevant information such as opening hours and whether catering is available. The startup offers a similar level of detail across all 466 location categories in its database, a value proposition that has attracted the attention of some of the biggest names in the technology business.

Apple Inc. uses Global Places to support its mobile mapping service, which was recently revealed to have surpassed Google Maps as the most popular navigation app on iOS, while rival Microsoft Corp.  incorporates certain records into Bing search results. Factual also works with Palantir Technologies Inc., a supplier of analytics software to the intelligence community that secured $129 million in a funding round of its own this week, and that’s just three among many thousands of users. Most are small and medium-size developers that rely on its value-added location data management services to deliver functionality like geotagging.

The new funds are meant to help grow the startup’s customer base even further, particularly in international markets. The round saw the participation of nearly a dozen venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz as well as a number of private investors, most notably former The Walt Disney Company president Michael Ovitz. Factual’s total raised now stands at a respectable $62 million.

Image via Geralt