EDINA

What EDINA does

EDINA is a digital expertise centre operating within The University of Edinburgh, established in 1996 as a unit providing data and digital services to the UK education and research community. It runs a portfolio of subscription data platforms and a bespoke consultancy practice, employing 51–100 staff at its Edinburgh headquarters. Its customers are primarily UK Higher and Further Education institutions, primary and secondary schools (over 3,500 British schools use Digimap for Schools), and public-sector organisations requiring geospatial, AI, or digital product engineering support.

The product suite centres on six offerings. ELM is a generative AI innovation platform providing compliant access to Large Language Models with Retrieval Augmented Generation, agentic workflows, and ETL capabilities. Noteable is a browser-based computational notebook service used to create and share coding lessons. The Digimap platform delivers Ordnance Survey, historical, geological, LiDAR, and marine mapping data to UK universities and colleges by institutional subscription; Digimap for Schools is a cross-curricular mapping service for K-12 learners aged 5–16+. agCensus is a proprietary agricultural census time-series database for England, Scotland, and Wales, with algorithms converting government small-area data into 2km, 5km, and 10km grid squares. Consultancy Services provides bespoke AI, geospatial, and application development work for education and public-sector clients. Technology integrations include Angular, OpenLayers, and Angular Material Components, with data partnerships across Ordnance Survey, National Library of Scotland, Getmapping, Collins Bartholomew, Natural Earth, Overture Maps, and Geograph.

EDINA monetises through three primary streams: tier-priced institutional subscriptions for Digimap and Digimap for Schools (£123/£198/£234 per year excluding VAT for primary, secondary, and international schools respectively); not-publicly-disclosed institutional agreements with universities and colleges for Digimap; and bespoke consultancy engagements. Distribution combines a self-serve subscription portal for schools, direct institutional sales for Higher Education, and enterprise field sales for consultancy. The Free Access Scheme, funded by Ordnance Survey, provides free 12-month subscriptions to schools in the lowest 8% of deprived areas, seeding long-term adoption. Marketing is multi-channel — a monthly newsletter, organic social (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram), YouTube content, free training webinars, and a curated learning resources library of 143+ items.

Name

EDINA

Legal name

EDINA

Website

https://edina.ac.uk

Company type

Private

Founded year

1996

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

EDINA is a digital expertise centre at The University of Edinburgh operating subscription mapping, geospatial, computational notebook, and generative AI platforms — principally Digimap, Digimap for Schools, Noteable, and ELM — for UK universities, K-12 schools, and public-sector clients.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Educational Geospatial Software and Services

NAICS

Educational Services (611), Educational Support Services (611710)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Digital Learning, EdTech Enablement & Connectivity for Education (BPADAKAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Interactive Presentation & Lesson Delivery Engagement Tools (EDAFAGAJ), Interactive Practice & Skill-Building (Drills, Games, Mastery Practice) (EDAFACAC)

Keywords

• Geospatial data services
• Online mapping platforms
• Educational technology solutions
• Geographic information systems
• Academic research data

Headquarters

HQ city

Edinburgh

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Digimap Subscription: Annual subscription-based access to online mapping and spatial data services for UK Higher and Further Education institutions. Subscription model with institutional licensing.
2. Digimap for Schools Subscription: Annual subscription for K-12 schools in Great Britain and international schools. Priced by school type (Primary: £123, Secondary: £198, International: £234 per year excluding VAT).
3. Consultancy Services: Bespoke professional services including AI and GenAI, geospatial and academic data engineering, web and mobile application development, and digital product design. Delivered by dedicated team of geospatial, computational and AI engineers.
4. agCensus Data: Agricultural census time-series database accessible through Digimap for academic institutions. Data provided in various formats including csv, shapefiles and geotiffs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

EDINA provides digital products and services for education and research, including subscription-based online mapping and spatial data delivery (Digimap and Digimap for Schools), an AI innovation platform providing access to Large Language Models (ELM), a cloud-based computational notebook service (Noteable), a grid-square standardised agricultural census database (agCensus), and bespoke consultancy services in AI, geospatial and digital product development for the education and public sectors.

Product overview

EDINA is a world-class centre for data and digital expertise at the University of Edinburgh, established in 1984 and operating as a multi-product platform provider for education and research. The product portfolio comprises six distinct offerings: ELM® for AI innovation providing safer access to Generative AI via Large Language Models with RAG and agentic workflows; Noteable® for cloud-based computational notebooks enabling coding lessons accessible from any browser; the Digimap® suite including the core Digimap subscription service for UK Higher and Further Education (featuring Ordnance Survey, historical, geological, LiDAR, and marine mapping data) and Digimap for Schools for primary and secondary education (supporting learners aged 5-16+ with cross-curricular geography, maths, literacy, and history content); agCensus for agricultural census time-series data across England, Scotland, and Wales standardized into grid representations; and Consultancy Services leveraging over 30 years of geospatial, computational, and AI engineering expertise. The company also offers specialized expertise in geospatial and satellite data, computational learning, text and data mining, e-preservation, and machine learning.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• ELM: An AI innovation platform, launched at The University of Edinburgh, providing a safer, central gateway to Generative Artificial Intelligence via access to Large Language Models.
• Noteable
• Digimap
• Digimap for Schools
• agCensus
• EDINA Consultancy Service

Quantifiable outcome

• Adopted by thousands of British schools and growing international community
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability7 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Ordnance SurveycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on the Free Access Scheme providing Digimap for Schools free of charge for schools in deprived areas. Ordnance Survey funds approximately 1700 eligible schools. Also primary data provider for Digimap and Digimap for Schools mapping data.
• National Library of ScotlandcoreTechnology or IntegrationData provider for historical maps in Digimap for Schools. Provides 1890s and 1950s historical mapping coverage of Great Britain.
• GetmappingcoreTechnology or IntegrationProvides aerial photography for Digimap for Schools. Offers contemporary aerial imagery at multiple scales.
• Collins BartholomewcoreTechnology or IntegrationProvides Collins Bartholomew World Panorama reference mapping showing international boundaries and disputed territories for all countries.
• TwinklminorGTM or Marketing PartnerEducational resources company partnered to provide lessons and activities using Digimap for Schools mapping service.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Pearson: Pearson is a global education publishing and assessment company with a UK schools business covering curriculum, assessment, and digital learning tools. Comparable as a broad incumbent serving UK K-12 and HE with digital products that overlap education-technology procurement budgets EDINA addresses.
• Ordnance Survey: National mapping agency of Great Britain and primary data provider for EDINA's Digimap suite. Operates OS Maps and OS data products and funds the Free Access Scheme for schools. Both partner with and partially overlap with EDINA in delivering mapping products to education and public sector customers.
• Google Earth (Google for Education): Google Earth and Google Workspace for Education provide geospatial exploration and classroom tools freely to schools worldwide. A broad incumbent offering overlapping mapping functionality that competes with Digimap for Schools but lacks Ordnance Survey-grade UK data and curriculum integration.

Direct peers

• Esri UK: Esri UK is the UK distributor of Esri's ArcGIS platform and operates an established Schools programme bringing GIS into UK classrooms. Direct competitor to Digimap/Digimap for Schools in providing geospatial tools, data, and curriculum resources to UK education.
• Twinkl: UK-based educational resources and lesson-plan platform serving primary and secondary schools with curriculum-mapped content. EDINA has a GTM partnership with Twinkl to deliver lessons built around Digimap for Schools, making Twinkl a complementary and partially overlapping EdTech peer in the same schools segment.
• Google Colab: Google Colab is a free cloud-based Jupyter-style computational notebook environment aimed at teaching, learning, and data science. Direct functional peer to EDINA's Noteable cloud notebook service and a competitor for educational coding/STEM use cases in HE and FE.

Others

• UK Data Service: ESRC-funded national data service providing access to key economic, social, and population data for research and teaching. EDINA's Head of Services sits on its leadership committees; comparable as a UK research-data infrastructure peer serving the same HE customer base.
• Digital Curation Centre: Digital Curation Centre is a sister service at the University of Edinburgh providing digital curation guidance and tools for UK research and education. Operates under the same university umbrella as EDINA and shares Business Development leadership; comparable as an adjacent research-data and EdTech support service.
• Jisc: Jisc is the UK not-for-profit digital, data, and technology agency for higher education and research. Operates shared national infrastructure (including the Jisc Data Archive and Janet network) comparable to EDINA's Digimap and Noteable services serving UK universities and research communities.

Emerging players

• Mapbox: Mapbox provides APIs and SDKs for building custom map-based applications for web and mobile. Comparable to EDINA's Noteable/Digimap stack as a mapping and location platform provider, focused on developers and enterprise rather than education directly.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/EDINADatacentre
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/edina
• Xx.com/edinadatacentre
• Facebookfacebook.com/edina.datacentre

Compliance4 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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

M&A

Investments1 record

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

Frequently asked questions about EDINA