Radar raises $20 million series B led by Accel to build developer-friendly, privacy-first location data infrastructure

#News(Startup) [ via IoTGroup ]

We started Radar almost four years ago to help developers build great app experiences with location.
Location underpins many of the apps that we use every day, from hailing a ride to tagging photos to ordering food.
Yet building with location is still too challenging.
Second, between GDPR, CCPA, iOS 13, and New York Times cover stories, data privacy is under more scrutiny than ever, and rightfully so.
Because of this, we’re on a mission to build the world’s most developer-friendly, privacy-first location data infrastructure, unlocking the next generation of location-aware app experiences.
Today, we’re excited to announce a $20 million series B led by Accel, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, Bedrock Capital, Heavybit, PrimeSet, and Zach Weinberg and Nat Turner (the co-founders of Flatiron Health).
Vas Natarajan from Accel joins the board.
With this new funding, we’re doubling down on our commitment to privacy and to developers.
First, we’re launching new building blocks for location-aware apps.
We’re open-sourcing our SDK, introducing new tracking options that make the SDK more flexible than ever.
SDK v3 is available in public beta today.
These APIs are available in private beta today.
Consumers share many types of sensitive information with companies they trust, like addresses, social security numbers, credit card information, and health history.
Companies often use trusted processors like Stripe or AWS to handle and store this information securely.
But consumers don’t expect those processors to share that data across customers or sell it to third parties, even if it’s been pseudonymized or anonymized.
What about location data?
Unfortunately, the practice of sharing and selling data to third parties is all too common in the location space.
The future of location will be powered by first-party data only, with clear opt-in from and value for end users.
Radar is a SaaS company, not an ad tech company.

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