In a recent statement, Appen – the global AI-assisted data annotation platform – announced that it will be acquiring a 100% share in Quadrant – a mobile location data provider.
Quadrant will be merged with Appen’s global network of over one million users distributed across 170 countries, setting Quadrant’s flagship Geolancer platform as the market-leading POI platform. The use of blockchain technologies as the underlying framework for Quadrant’s solutions can significantly expand the market reach of all of Appen’s products across multiple sectors, allowing the company to tap into new opportunities for leveraging such already encompassed industries as retail, courier services, advertising, e-commerce platforms, mapping companies, and many others.
The Geolancer application by Quadrant is best known for its blockchain-based location data platform that allows users – dubbed Geolancers – to record, verify and mark data on physical points of interest and other locations. The application rewards users with the native EQUAD cryptocurrency through instant payouts, making it a highly attractive service that has already added over 180,000 POI data points on maps across seven countries in Southeast Asia since May of 2021 alone.
The acquisition entailed a $25 million upfront cash payment on the part of Appen. The deal also foresees a potential additional payment ranging in the region of $20 million in Appen shares. The latter are to be issued only if the acquisition proves valuable enough upon reaching revenue milestones set for 2022 and 2023.
“The acquisition of Quadrant enables Appen to increase our addressable market and to expand our product and service offering to our customers to include more mobile location and POI data capabilities. We already have the broadest AI training data offering in the industry, and we see an opportunity to grow in the mobile location and POI data space. With Quadrant’s Geolancer and our global crowd, we will be strongly positioned to serve customers’ scale, speed and quality requirements,” as stated by Appen CEO Mark Brayan.
Appen has also announced that the acquisition will strongly position the company on the highly contested and demanded mobile data market, leveraging Quadrant’s 450 million monthly unique device visits and low delivery frequency times that range at around 5-minute intervals.