Placekey
Placekey operates a free, open universal identifier standard for physical places, combining a POI code with an H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding to solve address matching across datasets. It serves real estate, healthcare, CPG, government, and data analytics organizations through API-first delivery and a 30+ partner ecosystem.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2019
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Placekey does
Placekey is a for-profit company, founded in 2019 and headquartered in San Francisco, that operates a free, open universal identifier standard for physical places. Its core product is a two-part alphanumeric code (What@Where) that combines a unique POI identifier with a geospatial encoding built on Uber's open-source H3 hexagonal grid system at Resolution 10, covering approximately 15,000 square meters per cell. The standard is designed to solve address matching problems across disparate datasets, handling edge cases such as non-addressable locations (encoded as "zzz"), multiple POIs at a single address, and historical changes in business occupancy over time. Placekey serves real estate, healthcare, consumer packaged goods, government, and data and analytics organizations, with a community of over 500 enterprise and startup supporters.
Placekey distributes primarily through an API-first, product-led growth motion. A self-serve developer portal at dev.placekey.io provides a free tier of 10,000 queries per day for verified accounts and 1,000 per day for unverified accounts, with paid annual subscriptions for bulk upload API access and higher query limits. The company also monetizes through a direct enterprise sales channel and a 30+ partner ecosystem including CARTO, Cherre, SafeGraph, Esri, Regrid, Snowflake, CoreLogic, and Foursquare, which embed Placekey into geospatial platforms, data warehouses, and POI datasets. Developer access is supported by Python and JavaScript SDKs, RESTful API documentation, and platform integrations with Snowflake, Esri ArcGIS Pro, and QGIS. In December 2025, Placekey was acquired by Senzing, an entity resolution platform company, with the stated intent of expanding the open standard within Senzing's platform.
Placekey firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Placekey
- Legal name
- Placekey
- Website
- https://placekey.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2019
- Operating status
- Acquired
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Placekey operates a free, open universal identifier standard for physical places, combining a POI code with an H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding to solve address matching across datasets. It serves real estate, healthcare, CPG, government, and data analytics organizations through API-first delivery and a 30+ partner ecosystem.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Placekey industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Geospatial Data Infrastructure
- NAICS
- Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (541370), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518210)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Geocoding, Search & Place Data Platforms (BPAMANAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- GIS & Spatial Data Management Platforms (BPAMANAK), POI, Local Listings & Business Directory Platforms (BPAMANAD)
Keywords
Where Placekey is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Placekey business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Freemium API Access: Free tier provides up to 10,000 queries/day for verified accounts (1,000/day for unverified). No charge for storing Placekeys. Paid tiers provide bulk upload API access and higher query limits beyond free quotas.
- Annual API Subscription: Annual paid plans for upgraded API access. Plans are billed annually and non-refundable once access is granted. Digital delivery of API access upon purchase.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free tier with 10,000 queries/day for verified accounts |
| Subscription | Annual | Annual paid plan with bulk API and higher limits |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels8 records
Placekey product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Placekey provides a free, open universal identifier system for physical places, combining a unique POI encoding (the 'What' Part) with an H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding (the 'Where' Part) into a single alphanumeric code in What@Where format. The company offers REST API access, Python and JavaScript SDKs, a geocoder, and integrations with platforms such as Snowflake, ArcGIS Pro, and QGIS, enabling developers and data teams to join location data across disparate datasets without manual address standardization.
Product overview
Placekey is a single unified product offering a free, open universal identifier standard for physical places. The core Placekey identifier combines a POI encoding component (What) with a hexagonal geospatial encoding component (Where) built on Uber's H3 grid system. Developer access is provided via a public REST API with accompanying Python and JavaScript SDKs available through PyPI and npm respectively. The product also includes a geocoding service and open-source GitHub repositories for community contributions.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Placekey A free, open universal standard identifier for any physical place, enabling geospatial data to be shared across organizations easily. Combines POI encoding (What) with H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding (Where) into a single alphanumeric code accessible via REST API.
- Placekey Python SDK Python library distributed via PyPI enabling developers to perform geometric operations with Placekey identifiers and integrate with the Placekey API.
- Placekey JavaScript SDK JavaScript library distributed via npm enabling developers to perform geometric operations with Placekey identifiers and integrate with the Placekey API.
- Placekey Geocoder Geocoding service that converts street addresses to latitude/longitude coordinates along with Placekey identifiers, with mandatory attribution requirements for displaying Placekey-licensed latitude/longitude values.
Quantifiable outcome
- Saves man-hours of tedious dataset preparation and cleaning; can reduce spatial join processing time from 8 hours to significantly less
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Placekey
Customer profileNamed customers8 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles5 records
Placekey technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature11 records
Placekey partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
22 partnerships are on record, tiered core, founding partner and contributing partner.
- SenzingcoreSenzing acquired Placekey in December 2025 to expand open standard for location data interoperability. The acquisition aims to maintain Placekey's open standard while expanding its capabilities and support within Senzing's entity resolution platform. Placekey's universal identifier for places data will enhance analytics, AI, and workflows that rely on accurate location data.
- CARTOfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. CARTO platform empowers business analysts and data scientists to turn location data into business outcomes using visual insights.
- Cherrefounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Cherre provides investors, insurers, and real estate advisors with a platform to collect, resolve, and augment real estate data from hundreds of thousands of sources.
- SafeGraphfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. SafeGraph curates the most accurate and precise database of global points of interest each month to power applications with a location component.
- Esrifounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Esri is the global market leader in GIS software, location intelligence, and mapping, offering the most powerful geospatial cloud.
- Regridfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Regrid (makers of landgrid.com) is dedicated to putting America online parcel by parcel for governments, developers, and individuals.
- Commerce Signalsfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Commerce Signals provides aggregate, anonymized U.S. credit and debit card spending behavior data for retailers and consumer companies.
- Environics Analyticsfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Environics is an evidence-based consultancy delivering relevant research solutions and actionable insight.
- Epistemixfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Epistemix empowers leaders to make better decisions by simulating how diseases, ideas, and emergent phenomena spread through communities.
- Unfoldedfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Unfolded pioneers advanced spatial analytics and visualization.
- Verasetfounding partnerData and technology integration partner. Veraset is a Data-as-a-Service company fueling population movement understanding for innovators.
- CoreLogiccontributing partnerContributing partner. CoreLogic provides property data and analytics to the property industry.
- Experiancontributing partnerContributing partner. Experian provides credit data and analytics services.
- FullContactcontributing partnerContributing partner. FullContact provides consumer identity resolution services.
- Direct Reliefcontributing partnerContributing partner. Direct Relief is a humanitarian aid organization.
- Domocontributing partnerContributing partner. Domo provides cloud-based business intelligence and data analytics.
- Snowflakecontributing partnerContributing partner. Snowflake provides cloud data platform with native Placekey integration via external functions.
- Cuebiqcontributing partnerContributing partner. Cuebiq provides location-powered consumer insights.
- CostQuest Associatescontributing partnerContributing partner. CostQuest Associates provides telecom GIS and broadband data services.
- TripAdvisorcontributing partnerPartner featuring case study on using Placekey to accelerate product development.
- DATAMARKcontributing partnerPartner featuring case study on using Placekey for public safety data intelligence.
- Foursquarecontributing partnerPartner referenced in blog content about joining Foursquare and Overture Places datasets using Placekey.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Placekey competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- What3Words: What3Words is a direct peer providing an alternative human-friendly location-encoding system (three-word addresses) that competes for the same universal-place-identifier use case as Placekey, though with different mechanics and licensing.
- Open Location Code (Plus Codes): Open Location Code (Plus Codes) is a Google-developed open location-encoding standard that competes directly with Placekey's H3-based Where Part, targeting the same problem of representing any physical place with a short identifier.
- CARTO: CARTO is a Placekey founding partner that operates a competing/adjacent location intelligence platform. While it integrates Placekey into its stack, CARTO also offers its own spatial analytics and POI-joining capabilities that overlap with Placekey's value proposition.
- Smarty: Smarty (formerly SmartyStreets) provides address validation, geocoding, and matching APIs that address the same address-matching pain points Placekey targets, particularly for high-volume enterprise data workflows.
- Regrid: Regrid is a Placekey founding partner and a US parcel data provider whose property-level joining use cases directly mirror Placekey's real estate and parcel-to-POI identification value proposition.
- Cherre: Cherre is a Placekey founding partner operating a real estate data platform that uses Placekey for cross-source property and place matching, positioning it as a comparable address-resolution customer and adjacent platform.
Broad incumbents
- SafeGraph: SafeGraph is a Placekey founding partner and a leading POI data provider. It offers broader commercial datasets and analytics that overlap with Placekey's POI identification capabilities, and serves as both a complementary partner and partial competitor.
- Esri: Esri is the global GIS software market leader and a Placekey founding partner. While it integrates Placekey via the ArcGIS Pro toolbox, Esri's broader ArcGIS platform encompasses geospatial data management capabilities that overlap with Placekey's core offering.
- Foursquare: Foursquare is a Placekey contributing partner operating a large POI and places dataset (Foursquare Places). It competes in adjacent POI data and location intelligence markets and uses Placekey as a join key between its data and external sources.
- Mapbox: Mapbox is a major mapping and location platform whose location-encoding and POI capabilities broadly overlap with Placekey's spatial identifier use case for developers building location-aware applications.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Placekey social profiles
Digital presencePlacekey financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Placekey leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Placekey funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Placekey M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Placekey
What does Placekey do?
Placekey provides a free, open universal identifier system for physical places, combining a unique POI encoding (the 'What' Part) with an H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding (the 'Where' Part) into a single alphanumeric code in What@Where format. The company offers REST API access, Python and JavaScript SDKs, a geocoder, and integrations with platforms such as Snowflake, ArcGIS Pro, and QGIS, enabling developers and data teams to join location data across disparate datasets without manual address standardization.
Is Placekey a public or private company?
Placekey is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently acquired.
When was Placekey founded?
Placekey was founded in 2019. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Placekey based?
Placekey is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Placekey make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Freemium API Access are the primary driver. The others are annual API Subscription.
Who are Placekey's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are What3Words, Open Location Code (Plus Codes), CARTO, Smarty, Regrid and Cherre. Broad incumbents are SafeGraph, Esri, Foursquare and Mapbox.
Does Placekey have an API?
Yes. Placekey offers a public REST API (v1) secured via SSL for retrieving Placekeys for physical locations by latitude/longitude coordinates or street address. Authentication is via API key header. Rate limits are 1,000 requests per minute to the Placekey API and 100 requests per minute to the Placekey Bulk API. Versioning is handled via URL path (v1). All request and response bodies are JSON. The API returns a Placekey identifier containing unique POI encoding (What) and H3 hexagonal geospatial encoding (Where) for the submitted location. Developer documentation is at docs.placekey.io/documentation.
What industry is Placekey in?
Placekey's product category is Geospatial Data Infrastructure. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAMANAC, Geocoding, Search & Place Data Platforms, with a secondary code of BPAMANAK, GIS & Spatial Data Management Platforms. Its NAICS code is 541370 and its SIC code is 7370.