What Unfolded does

Unfolded is a geospatial analytics company founded in 2019 and headquartered in San Francisco. Its core technology is a cloud-based geospatial workspace built on the Kepler.gl open-source visualization framework (branded FSQ Kepler), leveraging Uber's H3 hexagonal hierarchical spatial indexing system to unify analysis across spatial resolutions while preserving data integrity. The platform supports 3D visualization including a Globe Mode, spatial analysis modules (cluster-outlier and suitability analysis), administrative boundary auto-generation via Shapify, animation with 1440p video export, and broad data format interoperability (CSV, GeoJSON, Shapefiles, Vector Tiles). It is sold as a horizontal product serving four personas — spatial analysts, marketers, developers, and data scientists — with use cases spanning fleet visualization, origin-destination analysis, supply chain management, attribution measurement, audience targeting, and location-aware application development.

The company's business model is a hybrid of freemium and tiered recurring subscriptions. The free Studio tier (1GB cloud storage) serves as a product-led growth entry point. Spatial Desktop is priced at $25 per month with 3GB cloud storage for individual professionals, while Spatial Workbench targets enterprise BI teams at $250 per month plus compute usage and includes SQL Workbooks, Dashboards, and 5GB cloud storage. Developer-facing revenue streams include the Places API (global POI data via REST and Python SDK) and the Movement SDK for location-aware applications, both sold as recurring subscriptions. The GTM motion is sales-led for enterprise buyers with 'Talk to Sales' and 'Schedule a Demo' CTAs, combined with self-serve onboarding through the web studio and developer console.

Strategic technology differentiators include native connectors for Snowflake and BigQuery, plugins for QGIS, Grafana, and kepler.gl, the Foursquare Map SDK for embedded map experiences, and a curated spatial data catalog spanning demographics, infrastructure, elevation, weather, and remote sensing layered on top of Foursquare's proprietary Places POI dataset. The company operates as a private entity with 11-50 employees and has raised $6,000,000 across disclosed funding rounds (led by S28 Capital with Fontinalis Partners in January 2021, with a subsequent $0 round from FJ Labs in May 2022). Co-founder Ib Green is on record as leadership.

Name

Unfolded

Legal name

Foursquare

Website

https://unfolded.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Unfolded is a geospatial analytics company founded in 2019 and based in San Francisco that built cloud-native mapmaking and spatial analysis technology on H3 hexagonal indexing, serving spatial analysts, marketers, developers, and data scientists via freemium and subscription tiers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Geospatial Analytics Software

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (54137)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

GIS & Spatial Data Management Platforms (BPAMANAK)

akta.pro secondary industries

Mapping & Basemap Platforms (Tiles/SDKs) (BPAMANAB), Geocoding, Search & Place Data Platforms (BPAMANAC), Data & Analytics Platforms (Data Warehousing, Lakes, Streaming) (HDABAAAF)

Keywords

• Geospatial analytics
• Location intelligence
• Map visualization
• Spatial data platform
• POI data API

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Spatial Studio (Free): Free tier with 1GB cloud storage for basic geospatial visualization and mapping. Serves as entry point for self-service adoption and product-led growth.
2. Spatial Desktop: Desktop application at $25 per month with 3GB cloud storage. Targets individual geospatial professionals requiring powerful local computing with cloud synchronization.
3. Spatial Workbench: Enterprise-grade workspace at $250 per month plus compute usage. Includes SQL Workbooks, Dashboards, Flow Map Layer, 5GB cloud storage. Targets BI teams requiring advanced analytics capabilities.
4. Places API & Data: Programmatic access to Foursquare's POI data via REST API and Python library for developers building location-aware applications.
5. Movement SDK: SDK for building location-aware experiences in mobile and web applications.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Unfolded developed a cloud-based geospatial analytics platform centered on the Kepler.gl open-source visualization framework (FSQ Kepler), enabling users to visualize, analyze, and share large spatial datasets. The platform offers tiered access (Free, Spatial Desktop at $25/month, Spatial Workbench at $250/month + compute usage) with features including 3D visualization, H3 hex-tile indexing, SQL workbooks, dashboards, and built-in connectors to Snowflake and BigQuery. Supporting developer offerings include the Places API for global POI data and the Movement SDK for location-aware applications.

Product overview

Foursquare offers a platform-plus-modules architecture centered around location intelligence technology. The core Geospatial Intelligence Platform includes Foursquare Studio (Spatial Studio) as the primary cloud-based workspace for map making, advanced analytics, and visualization. Supporting this are specialized spatial tools: Spatial Workbench for BI teams with SQL workbooks and dashboards, Spatial H3 Hub for data scientists with H3-indexed features, and Spatial Desktop for powerful desktop-based geospatial computing. For marketers, the suite provides Attribution for measuring ad impact across touchpoints, Audience for in-market consumer targeting, and Proximity for real-time geofencing. The developer ecosystem includes Places API for global POI data access, Movement SDK for location-aware applications, and Dev Console for API management. Consumer-facing products include Swarm (check-in tracking) and Superlocal (discovery). An open source initiative, Placemaker, provides community access to POI data.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Spatial Studio: Cloud-based geospatial workspace for map making, advanced analytics, permissions, and sharing.
• Spatial Workbench
• Spatial H3 Hub
• Spatial Desktop
• Foursquare Swarm
• Superlocal
• Places API
• Movement SDK
• Attribution
• Audience
• Proximity
• Places POI Data
• Business Listings
• Placemaker

Products and services

• Foursquare Studio (Spatial Studio) Cloud-based geospatial workspace for map making, advanced analytics, permissions and sharing. Free tier with 1GB cloud storage; built on FSQ Kepler (Kepler.gl) foundation.
• Spatial Desktop Desktop geospatial computing application priced at $25 per month with 3GB cloud storage, supporting cloud-native geospatial formats for individual geospatial professionals.
• Spatial Workbench Enterprise-grade spatial analytics workspace priced at $250 per month plus compute usage, including SQL Workbooks, Dashboards, Flow Map Layer, and 5GB cloud storage for BI teams.
• Spatial H3 Hub H3-indexed features product for data scientists to unify diverse spatial datasets with full data integrity at all resolutions and explore big geospatial data at interactive speeds.
• Places API Global point of interest (POI) API providing accurate place data via REST API and Python library for apps and developer integrations.
• Movement SDK SDK for building location-aware experiences and custom geospatial applications in mobile and web environments.
• Placemaker Open source tool enabling access to high-quality POI data for the geospatial developer community.
• Developer Console (Dev Console) Developer console for accessing location developer tools, API keys, and building applications with Foursquare's location platform.

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature14 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• SnowflakecoreTechnology or IntegrationBuilt-in cloud data connector allows Studio users to easily edit, bookmark, and run SQL queries directly within Foursquare Studio using Snowflake data connections.
• BigQuerycoreTechnology or IntegrationBuilt-in cloud data connector enables Studio users to connect to BigQuery datasets, edit, bookmark, and execute SQL queries directly within the Foursquare Studio platform.
• kepler.glcoreTechnology or IntegrationFoursquare Studio is built on the Kepler.gl foundation (FSQ Kepler), leveraging the open-source geospatial visualization framework as its core visualization engine.

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• CARTO: CARTO is a cloud-native location intelligence platform offering spatial analytics, visualization, and data enrichment directly competitive with Unfolded's geospatial workspace, with a similar target market of spatial analysts and data scientists.
• Mapbox: Mapbox provides developer-focused mapping APIs, basemaps and visualization tools including deck.gl for geospatial analytics, overlapping with Unfolded on map making, visualization, and developer APIs for location-aware applications.

Broad incumbents

• Esri (ArcGIS Online): Esri's ArcGIS Online is the dominant enterprise GIS platform with extensive mapping, spatial analysis, and data management capabilities, competing for the same enterprise geospatial analytics budgets as Unfolded but with a much broader portfolio.
• Tableau: Tableau is a leading BI and analytics platform with native mapping, spatial joins, and dashboarding capabilities used by similar data analyst and marketer personas, providing a competing path for location-based insights without a dedicated geospatial tool.
• Precisely: Precisely provides geospatial data integrity, location data, and spatial analytics at enterprise scale, addressing overlapping needs around location data accuracy, enrichment, and mapping for large organizations.
• Here Technologies: Here offers location data, mapping, and geospatial analytics APIs used across enterprise and developer use cases, providing an alternative ecosystem for POI data, visualization, and spatial analytics that competes for the same developer and analyst buyers.

Emerging players

• Kepler.gl (open source): Kepler.gl is the open-source geospatial visualization engine on which Unfolded's product is built; it represents the same core capability delivered for free, framing the bottom of the market against which Unfolded's commercial tiers must justify their pricing.
• Safe Software (FME): Safe Software's FME platform focuses on spatial data integration, transformation, and ETL with mapping/visualization components, addressing overlapping data-preparation and geospatial workflow needs for enterprise users.
• Placer.ai: Placer.ai offers location intelligence and foot-traffic analytics for retailers and real estate, intersecting with Unfolded's marketer and analyst use cases around audience, proximity and site selection but focused on its own proprietary panel data.

Others

• Databricks (Spatial SQL / Mosaic AI): Databricks increasingly supports spatial SQL, H3 functions, and geospatial data science through its lakehouse platform; while not a direct visualization peer, it represents an alternative architecture for big-data geospatial analytics that Unfolded's users may choose instead.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/unfoldedinc
• YouTubevimeo.com/foursquarehq
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/foursquare

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Unfolded