When violent protests erupted in Ferguson, Mo., last month, tens of thousands of people took to Twitter to voice their anger under the hashtag #Ferguson.
The social media response, which started in the United States before spreading rapidly around the globe, was captured visually by CartoDB, a technology start-up founded in Madrid whose software allows anyone to make interactive maps with the reams of data now available online.
CartoDB, whose 30-person team is split between Madrid and New York, is the latest in a number of start-ups to offer services that try to make sense of the mountain of information readily available through the Internet.
As online data becomes increasingly accessible to both individuals and companies, tech start-ups are looking for new ways to make often-complex information easily understood by the general public.
Along with mapping Twitter reactions, the Spanish company’s software, for example, has been used by the United Nations to show changes in endangered areas worldwide. And Foursquare, an American start-up focused on local business recommendations, has used it to figure out the location of people’s favorite stores and restaurants.
“These are insights that people could never have seen before the data was placed on a map,” said Javier de la Torre, 35, who co-founded the company in 2009 and now splits his time between Madrid and New York. “We want to put the power of this type of data analysis in the hands of the people.”
On Wednesday, the Spanish start-up announced that it had raised $7 million from a consortium of investors, including the Berlin-based venture capital firm EarlyBird. The fundraising is aimed at expanding the company’s operations in the United States, its largest market, where the company recently moved its headquarters from Madrid.
The company uses a so-called freemium model, in which people can use a basic version of the software free, but must pay for premium services like uploading large data sets and keeping information private. (All data is publicly-accessible in the free version.)
“Almost everyone now needs to be literate about analyzing data,” said Mr. de la Torre. “People can make better decisions by having access to better information.”
So far, over 50,000 people globally have created more than 100,000 maps through the company’s software. That includes an interactive map of where every meteoroid has hit the earth over the last 2,000 years and a daily-updated map from the United States National Park Service that gives information on which trails are closed for maintenance nationwide.
Now, the Spanish start-up wants to push beyond viral Twitter maps created by individual users to convince more blue-chip companies to try its mapping software.
That includes the banking industry after CartoDB recently teamed up with the Spanish bank BBVA to map out credit card transactions in Barcelona. By showing exactly where people were making transactions, the bank could then tailor its services to help retailers bolster sales, according to Mr. de la Torre of CartoDB.
“There’s a real need for better tools for analyzing data,” he said. “Putting information on maps is a fast-track way to understand what’s going on.”