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OpenGeo investment signals federal IT landscape’s ‘growing interest’ in commercial open source software
Pioneering what is commonly being referred to as the “geospatial web or web GIS,” open source geospatial software firm OpenGeo has entered into an investment and technology development agreement with In-Q-Tel, Inc., a nonprofit investment firm that identifies commercial technology applications for the CIA and the broader U.S. intelligence community.
OpenGeo sells the OpenGeo Suite, a geospatial software stack with an integrated spatial database, application server, and web client API to analyze and publish geospatial data.
Terms of the investment with IQT were not disclosed, and OpenGeo’s David Dubovsky did not immediately return a request from SPAR for additional information. In a release, the company said the funds would boost OpenGeo’s product and customer service initiatives.
“[OpenGeo’s] geospatial products have a large range of applications that we believe will be important to both the commercial and government markets,” said Robert Ames, IQT senior vice president.
Saying the investment with IQT “signals the growing interest in commercial open source software in the federal IT landscape,” OpenGeo CEO Eddie Pickle said it will also enable his company to further its “spatial IT” strategic goals.
Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., it spun off from its incubator nonprofit parent, OpenPlans, Inc., in May after venture capital firm Vanedge Capital, located in British Columbia, invested $3 million in it.
“The paradigm shift toward web and mobile geospatial services is well underway and is permanently altering the spatial IT landscape,” Moe Kermani, partner at Vanedge, said at the time. “We believe this shift heavily favors open source and the OpenGeo Suite, which is ideally situated to become the de facto geospatial platform.”
VIDEO: Watch Paul Ramsey, OpenGeo’s geospatial architect, discussing why the most innovative people in the geospatial industry are no longer “doing GIS.”
