Knight Lab

Name

Knight Lab

Website

https://knightlab.northwestern.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

5,001–10,000 employees

Short description

Knight Lab develops technology aimed at making information meaningful and promoting quality storytelling on the internet. Founded in 2011 in Evanston, United States, the company operates as a for-profit private entity with a domain indicating Northwestern University affiliation.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Evanston

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Core offering

Knight Lab makes technology that aims to help make information meaningful and promotes quality storytelling on the internet. The firm is positioned as a creator of digital tools that support journalists, storytellers, and content creators in producing higher-quality online narratives.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Broad incumbents

• Tableau: Leader in data visualization and analytics whose storytelling and dashboard capabilities overlap with Knight Lab's mission of making information meaningful, primarily serving enterprise customers.
• Adobe (Adobe Express): Adobe's storytelling/web content tools, including Adobe Express, address similar narrative-building use cases as Knight Lab's open-source tools but as part of a vast creative-software portfolio.
• Esri: GIS and mapping software giant whose ArcGIS StoryMaps platform is a direct commercial competitor to Knight Lab's StoryMapJS, serving journalists and storytellers with richer interactivity but at enterprise price points.

Direct peers

• Piktochart: Visual storytelling and infographic platform that competes with Knight Lab's open-source visualization tools for editorial and educational use cases, with a more commercial/SaaS go-to-market.
• Shorthand: Commercial digital storytelling platform used by publishers to build immersive long-form narratives, directly competing with Knight Lab's web-based storytelling tools for journalist and brand audiences.
• Datawrapper: Web-based data visualization tool widely adopted by newsrooms for charts, maps, and tables; serves the same journalist and media-customer segment as Knight Lab's open-source tools.
• Sutori: Interactive timeline and storytelling platform used in education and publishing; comparable to Knight Lab's timeline offerings with a more commercial/SaaS go-to-market approach.
• Flourish: Data storytelling platform that lets journalists and analysts build interactive visualizations and narratives, directly comparable to Knight Lab's open-source visualization-driven storytelling approach.
• Tiki-Toki: Commercial web-based timeline creation tool that competes directly with Knight Lab's TimelineJS in the digital storytelling space, particularly for educational and editorial use cases.

Emerging players

• Mapbox: Mapping platform widely used to build interactive map-based stories and visualizations; comparable to Knight Lab's StoryMapJS in supporting developer-driven storytelling applications.

Market position

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/knightlab
• Facebookfacebook.com/knightlab
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/annemiaoli

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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 Knight Lab