UPDATED 12:01 EDT / FEBRUARY 03 2017

CLOUD

MapAnything raises $33.1M to become the Waze of field operations

For consumers, planning a travel route is as easy as inputting a few commands into the Google Inc. traffic app Waze. But field personnel often don’t have the same luxury thanks to the complexity of their schedules, a discrepancy that MapAnything Inc. has taken upon itself to tackle.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based startup on Thursday revealed it has raised $33.1 million in funding to fuel its efforts. Columbus Nova led the round, while ServiceNow Ventures and the half-dozen backers who participated in the MapAnything’s previous $7.3 million raise provided the rest. Notable contributors include Salesforce Ventures former NBA commissioner David Stern.

This week’s cash infusion follows a strong 12 months for MapAnything that saw the adoption of its namesake location service more than double year-over-year. Based on Salesforce.com Inc.’s cloud platform, the tool enables companies to overlay customer information on an interactive map that can help personnel navigate their assigned areas more effectively.

A salesperson tasked with meeting multiple clients in a given day, for instance, could use MapAnything to find the fastest route to reach every customer site. If a lead unexpectedly cancels, the service can quickly clear the allocated time slot in Salesforce.com and identify other nearby contacts who may be available to fill the gap. All the while, managers can track the activity of their personnel from a back-end monitoring console to ensure that everything is going smoothly.

MapAnything’s core capabilities are complemented by a pair of add-ons that provide insight into additional information about field operations. The first, MapAnything Live, is designed to help manage company vehicles, while the other is called Data Layers and allows users to identify new sales opportunities in important regions.

MapAnything plans to broaden its value proposition even further using the new funds from this week’s investment. One of the top items on the startup’s agenda is bringing its service to ServiceNow Inc.’s popular field operations management platform, which is presumably why it contributed to the round. MapAnything will also invest some of the new funds to enhance the capabilities of vehicle management extension.

The latter offering is coming under a growing amount of competition, even from within the Salesforce.com ecosystem. Marc Benioff’s firm last December joined a $7.5 million funding round into a startup called Automile Inc. that helps companies coordinate their vehicle fleets using real-time sensory data collected from the field.

Image courtesy of MapAnything

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