Geospatial tech startup Terria has spun out of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, after successfully closing a seed investment round with Australian deep tech investment fund, Main Sequence.

Terria organises and visualises the world’s spatial data, across thousands of mapping and information layers, to make it accessible and useful for everyone.

It simplifies the complex process of creating digital twins, or online virtual replicas of buildings, cities, regions and countries to enable modelling and investigation of ‘what-if’ scenarios.

The seed funding will help support Terria’s global ambitions for its products, which can assist with planning and managing the cities of the future, the energy transition and environmental monitoring. 

Professor Elanor Huntington, CSIRO’s Digital, National Facilities and Collections Executive Director, said the national science agency was proud to have incubated Australia’s newest tech start-up.

“It is very exciting to watch research turn into technology with real-world impact, and in this case, to form the foundation of a new stand-alone company,” Professor Huntington said.  

“CSIRO exists to foster Australian innovation and to help take that innovation out into the world.

“We are extremely proud of the Terria team – geospatial visualisation makes the enormous amount of global data understandable and accessible for everyone.”

Two former CSIRO employees will lead Terria: Ana Belgun, Terria Chief Executive Officer and Product Lead, and Amber Standley, Chief Experience Officer.

“Terria started in 2014, when the first open-data, open-source Australian Government platforms were created to help any organisation or individual to access and visualise spatial data,” Ms Belgun said.

“Since then, millions of users have accessed over 15,000 datasets on Terria mapping platforms.

“In this next phase we will scale the positive impact we have created so far for Australian companies and government agencies and take these advanced tools global to enable the creation and management of digital twins across different domains. 

“With a predicted $50 billion growth in the geospatial data market in the next three years alone, Terria can help organisations to consolidate, access and use spatial data more effectively.”

Mike Nicholls, Partner at Main Sequence, said Terria solves a major mapping and data problem in our built and natural environment: how to catalogue, visualise and analyse all the natural and built data in a given location.

“We first saw Terria a few years ago in the CSIRO Data61 lab and loved the products and how they were being adopted by users,” Mr Nicholls said.

“A typical city street has thousands of data sets and plans for buildings, streets, footpaths, electricity, water, sewage, telecommunications, parks, stations, transport, planning and the natural environment.

“Terria can bring all that data together integrating 80 different formats and visualise this on one map. We are excited to help spin this company out and look forward to them growing a huge customer base over the coming years.”

Find out more about Terria.

About Terria 

Terria organises and visualises the world’s spatial data, across thousands of mapping and information layers, to make it accessible and useful for everyone.

The content presented in Terria is sourced from a wide range of organisations. These include government departments and agencies, research institutions, commercial partners and other organisations. Further details about data attribution are available here.

About Main Sequence  

Main Sequence is tackling the world’s biggest challenges by turning today’s scientific discoveries into tomorrow’s industries. Main Sequence was founded by CSIRO in Australia in 2017. It now has $1Bn funds under management to help build and invest in companies that are solving our greatest planetary challenges.