The mapping revolution is upon us, and I'm here for it. THREAD:

First, the problem:

Maps are ubiquitous - we use them for everything from navigation to industrial operations to security to long-term planning. GIS software alone is a ~$5bn annual market and growing.

But map creation suffers from two big problems

First, there is a gaping hole between very basic consumer-friendly tools (e.g. Google Maps) and enterprise tools that require training/certification (e.g. ArcGIS). Not much middle ground, even though that's where most use cases lie.

Second, even the existing enterprise tools aren't well suited to the volume of data we can now use to make maps richer and more insightful.

It's a challenge to unseat incumbents directly in this market because they're so deeply entrenched across industries. But! There are dozens of startups focusing on a specific vertical, capability or user base...and starting to win. Some of their strategies:

1) Build collaborative mapping tools to fit a specific market that desperately needs them (e.g. @remix in transportation for cities)
2) Build better tools for developers so software engineers can make maps instead of GIS specialists (e.g. @mapbox)

3) Build maps that are natively suited to streaming time-series data, with rewind and playback capabilities (e.g. @TheLiveEarth)
4) Build toolkits for complex long-term geospatial scenario analysis (e.g. @UFPlatform)

5) Build a new class of 3D mapping applications to serve the coming wave of sensor data & autonomous vehicles (e.g. @CivilMaps) or the new digital normal in real estate (e.g. @Matterport)
6) Build the platform to construct detailed indoor maps (e.g. @NavVis_MUC)

This is all to say nothing of companies delivering rich geospatial data in industries that lacked it (e.g. @RapidSOS in emergency response) or operating the sensors, cameras, drones and satellites that will create that data ( @ousterlidar @DroneDeploy @planetlabs etc. etc.)

This is what I mean when I say we'll spend the next decade remapping the world ( https://medium.com/energy-impact-partners/the-world-around-us-e554cd7f62bd).