sensewhere Ltd., a provider of indoor location solutions, announced that Tencent Holdings Limited (“Tencent”, SEHK 00700), a provider of Internet services in China, has completed a strategic investment in the company. Tencent has also secured a license to use sensewhere indoor positioning software as part of its Tencent Map Location SDK that is available to numerous users across Tencent mobile platforms and mobile services of Tencent affiliate companies.
The investment will help sensewhere develop potential partnerships in China’s mobile Internet space, deliver its mobile advertising service, fuel expansion of the company and its indoor location solutions. As part of the arrangements, sensewhere will be Tencent’s preferred vendor for location based advertising services in China.
sensewhere’s CEO, Rob Palfreyman said: “This investment by Tencent will be significant for the company and is an endorsement of our technology, strategy and ability to deliver low cost, highly scalable and highly accurate Universal indoor positioning.”
“I am thrilled with the collaboration, and having Tencent as a strategic investor will help take sensewhere to the next level and assist us growing our customer base, building new Location Based Services and investing further in R&D,” said Mr. Palfreyman.
sensewhere’s Chairman, Jim Devine added: “The investment by Tencent highlights the advantage of sensewhere’s indoor positioning technology over other solutions and further cements our position as a leading Indoor Positioning System (IPS) provider. The planned roll out of multiple services to millions of users across China and contiguous territories which incorporate sensewhere’s enabling technology represents a major step forward towards our goal of providing a truly global solution for indoor positioning.”
sensewhere firmly believes that its seamless, automatic solution for IPS and easy integration with mobile applications and devices will be the driving force behind emerging technologies, for example automatic beacon mapping, wearable technology, artificial intelligence, mobile advertising and of course using its live database to power next generation Location Based Services.
Julian Ma, Corporate Vice President of Tencent in Mobile Internet Group, said: “We believe that a superior, universal indoor positioning technology will deeply influence how people interact with each other, and significantly change how companies communicate with consumers and conduct commerce indoor across online and offline platforms. sensewhere’s unique, highly scalable approach will greatly enhance Tencent Map’s indoor positioning capabilities and enable our users to navigate indoor in a much more accurate and convenient manner.”
