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We, the founding team, always loved data - ideating around it, engineering with it, understanding the world better with it.
But what captivated us most was imagining data products that can be used by tens of thousands of businesses across the world.
Among all the ideas and visions we bounced around before starting the company, one stood out for its simplicity and potential impact - building a ‘Physical Market Intelligence Platform’ to provide everyone in the offline world (a.k.a the ‘real world’) with aggregate insights for decision-making. Or in layman’s terms, “a dashboard to get instant insights for any place to understand its audience, surroundings, and competition”.
In 2016, the Placer founding team gathered in a basement and spent a weekend sketching out a plan to turn this idea into a massive world-class data company.
Whiteboarding without customers or tech debt is fun!!!
The more paper we stuck to that basement wall, the bigger the vision became! Everything is possible with the stroke of a pen…
But very quickly, we hit some glaring challenges:
The best way to approach a big challenge is breaking it down into smaller ones. So we worked hard to define Phase 1 - focusing on building a product that (1) was centered around the mobile location analytics dataset and (2) generated reports tailored for CRE and retail.
5 years and 5 funding rounds later, we’re FINALLY feeling “pretty good” about Phase 1: we launched a world-class mobile analytics product that’s used by over 1,000 customers, and thousands more are using our free products.
But it’s also been “frustrating” - we were always strapped for cash and resources. We’re yet to integrate most of the datasets we need; key reports for certain verticals remain in the product pipeline; and in terms of usability and workflow features, we still have a lot to do in order to create a truly comprehensive platform (vs “read only” status insights tool).
That’s why the $100M Series C funding we just announced is so momentous for me and the rest of the Placer team. It finally removes the shackles and equips us with the tools and materials we need for Phase 2 - rapidly building the full Placer.ai Market Intelligence Platform.
So let’s dive into what that means…
A Physical Market Intelligence Platform is a big data puzzle. Piecing it together - in a nutshell - consists of four phases:
A vast amount of interconnected data is required to create a truly accurate and complete picture of what’s going on at a location. This data falls into two broad categories:
Now consider all things you see going on in the world and imagine how POI and geospatial data can capture and quantify them…
Here’s a snippet:
We track dozens of data categories and thousands of datasets and vendors in order to identify new data that can help answer our customers’ questions.
This is 50% of our work and is a huge data challenge - but also great fun!
Through partnerships and our App Marketplace, we’ve recently integrated online reviews, credit card data, demographics, vehicle traffic volume, crime figures and planned construction into our platform. And we have lots more datasets in our pipeline: retail sales, property sales, financial data, leasing comparisons and climate data to name just a few.
If the data are the ingredients, then ingestion is the cooking. This includes complex data science processes:
Tagging data to POIs is a massive task. Placer’s POI database contains millions of entities: a commercial real estate asset in a customer’s portfolio; stores of a retailer’s chain or that hold a CPG brand’s products; a billboard used for out-of-home advertising; a downtown area being regenerated by a municipality or business improvement district. We geofence each one so data can be tagged to it.
But a much greater complexity than the volume of data-POI matching is the fact that our data structure is mutable - it changes. Stores, restaurants, strip malls and other POIs open, close, merge and move. Our physical environment is constantly changing. One of our platform’s standout attributes is that it always reflects historical change.
In practice, this means that, for each POI change, we not only adjust our data tagging but also re-tag 5 years of historical data to ensure any historical comparisons are “like with like”. This is a huge investment of resources on the part of our data science, devops and engineering teams - exponentially increasing our data management burden.
To complete the cooking metaphor, after selecting ingredients (datasets) and cooking them (data ingestion), we then lay out a buffet-style feast of solutions for our users:
The most basic level of the platform is converting the data into real-world constructs that can be understood by industry professionals: tables, charts, maps and other graphics displaying cross shopping, trade areas (below), cannibalization, risk analysis, visit frequency and so on.
A key tenet of the Market Intelligence Platform is the approach that insights like those are often not the answer to the questions that our customers are looking for. Rather, they are just part of the explanation behind the answer. That means providing a comprehensive suite of Solutions SUPPORTED by insights, not just a library of uncontextualized insights.
An excellent example of this is Void Analysis. A key question for retail real estate is “who is my ideal tenant?” While our platform offered important insights (such as retailers’ average monthly foot traffic and cannibalization) for reaching an answer, landlords were doing a lot of legwork. The Void Analysis tool we released late last year enables CRE professionals to instantly analyze thousands of potential tenants through automatically generated reports that include ranking according to our unique Relative Fit Score. This significantly improves the speed and scope of a search for new tenants.
We are now working on the many additional solutions like Void Analysis in our development pipeline - sales forecasting, site selection for retail chains, market selection, market change reports, product optimization for CPG to name a few.
To be truly useful, solutions must also be delivered in a way that fits various users’ workflows. A dashboard is a good start, but a full platform must offer a range of access points. This means data feeds, REST APIs, and other methods of programmatic access.
We’ll also add to that a rich layer of data exploration tools such as GIS, templates, graph builders, pivot table functionality and advanced entity search. This will provide users with maximum flexibility in how they explore and visualize our data.
The lion’s share of the work is still ahead of us here - more widgets, third party integrations, report generators, scheduled intelligence reports and alerts, and much more.
The platform’s user interface must be fully customized to fit the needs of its different user types across verticals AND within companies (business users, data scientists, data analysts, third party users). An example of how we’ve begun to do this is a portfolio overview section for CRE analysts to rapidly scan properties’ performance metrics. Another is our COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard, particularly used by civic organizations to assess the impact of the pandemic on local economic areas.
As we presented “just data”, we quickly realized some customers were looking for humans to add a “research layer” and context around the data. So an analytical research team has become part of the product. They capture and present key market intelligence, respond to the latest industry trends and customer interests. “The Anchor”, a weekly CRE executive intelligence report launched last September, has now become an inbox staple for many of our customers.
To our current understanding, we’re just “5%” of the way to our Market Intelligence Platform vision. The remaining 95% will be built by scaling POI coverage, datasets, answering more questions and developing the other core components of the platform.
So our focus now is on ramping up the velocity of this development. And to do that, we need even more of the world’s best talent across the company.
So, during 2022, we will use our new capital to double the size of our engineering team and significantly expand the data at our disposal. In parallel, we will also channel more resources to supporting our customers and contributing to industry understanding through our analytical research department and educational content.
Placer.ai is committed to transforming the way real-world businesses make decisions. And we don’t want to waste any time going about it.
LOS ALTOS, CA (January 12, 2021)--Placer.ai, the leader in location analytics and foot traffic data, announced today the closing of a $100M Series C funding round at a $1B valuation. The round was led by Josh Buckley with participation from WndrCo, Lachy Groom, MMC Technology Ventures LLC, Fifth Wall Ventures, JBV Capital, and Array Ventures. The round also included the participation of leading commercial real estate investors and operators, including J.M. Schapiro (Continental Realty Corp), Eliot Bencuya and Jeff Karsh (Tryperion Partners), Daniel Klein (Klein Enterprises/Sundeck Capital), Majestic Realty, and others. The funding will be used to expand the company’s R&D capabilities to further increase the pace of innovation.
“Placer experienced significant growth during 2021 as a consensus formed across the market that accurate, reliable consumer behavior analytics is indispensable to brick and mortar decision-making,” said Noam Ben-Zvi, CEO and Co-Founder of Placer.ai. “Yet, location analytics is just the foundation for a much broader and more comprehensive vision. With this funding, we will accelerate the development of the Placer.ai platform, adding an unprecedented range of new data sets - such as vehicle traffic, planned construction, web traffic, purchase data, and much more - as well as more advanced solutions to empower any professional with a stake in the physical world to make better decisions, faster than ever before. ”
Since launching in November 2018, Placer.ai has been adopted by over 1,000 customers including industry leaders in commercial real estate and retail like JLL, Regency Centers, Taubman, Planet Fitness, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Grocery Outlet. In the wake of COVID-driven upheaval, the company saw widespread adoption among a series of new categories, among them hedge funds and CPG leaders including Tyson Foods and Reckitt Benckiser.
"Placer provides instant, simple and actionable insights to questions we've been asking as operators for over 30 years. The pace of innovation, the unique trust that the company has developed, and the massive market demand all point to the magnitude and scale of what this team can achieve,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, Founding Partner of WndrCo.
"We have long felt like the disruption Placer can bring is massive, but the market demand has far exceeded our initial expectations," said Josh Buckley. “We see a powerful opportunity to continue partnering with Placer to improve the way decisions are made in the physical world, fundamentally improving the way these businesses and organizations operate."
Try Placer.ai for free here.
About Placer.ai:
Placer.ai is the most advanced foot traffic analytics platform allowing anyone with a stake in the physical world to instantly generate insights into any property for a deeper understanding of the factors that drive success. Placer.ai is the first platform that fully empowers professionals in retail, commercial real estate, hospitality, economic development, and more to truly understand and maximize their offline activities. Find more information here: https://placer.ai/
LOS ALTOS, CA (April 27, 2021) --Placer.ai, the leader in location analytics and foot traffic data, announced today the close of a $50M Series B funding round. The round was led by Josh Buckley, Todd Goldberg and Rahul Vohra, with participation from Fifth Wall, JBV Capital and Aleph VC. The funding will be used to grow the company’s R&D, expand sales and marketing teams, introduce additional reports and data sets, and grow the recently announced marketplace.
Since launching in November 2019, Placer.ai has been adopted by over 500 customers including industry leaders in Commercial Real Estate and Retail like JLL, Brixmor, Taubman, Planet Fitness, and Dollar General. Yet, the recent upheaval caused by COVID led to widespread adoption among a series of new categories including Hedge Funds and CPG leaders.
“As a business deeply rooted in offline retail, we expected COVID to present a unique challenge. Yet, adoption actually increased as a result of our ability to introduce certainty into such an uncertain environment. The result has been a clearer and deeper understanding by the market of the absolute imperative of location data to improve the decision-making process,” said Placer.ai CEO and Co-Founder Noam Ben-Zvi.
“But our current offering is just the beginning, and we are fully focused on expanding the capabilities both through the development of a range of new features and tools, and the integration of a wide range of data sets through our marketplace. Placer.ai is rapidly becoming the market intelligence platform for anyone with a stake in the physical world.”
In the last year, Placer.ai continued to expand its presence in core markets like Commercial Real Estate, Retail, Municipal governments, and Hospitality while advancing into new segments like CPG and Hedge Funds. The result has been growing market adoption and an increasingly large and diverse reach.
"Fifth Wall has some of the largest owners and operators of real estate as our limited partners and several were customers of Placer.ai, giving us a unique perspective on the company’s growth and potential. We saw firsthand the impact that the data is already having in reimagining the way business is done in retail and real estate broadly,” said Kevin Campos, Partner on the Retail & Consumer Investment team at Fifth Wall. “Yet, what’s even more exciting is that we’re still only seeing a piece of the puzzle and know that there are so many other sectors where the data can be applied. We’re thrilled to help grow and execute this vision alongside this exceptional team.”
"Placer allows businesses that operate offline to make data-driven decisions, fundamentally improving the way they operate. This is the same type of tooling that online businesses have used to grow, moving from hunches to definitive answers," said Josh Buckley. “I'm excited to be partnering with the company's next phase of growth and product development."
“Our journey with Placer.ai started at the very beginning as one of the company's first beta customers. Seeing the disruptive power of the product up close, the speed at which the company developed new features, and the tremendous traction they achieved in the marketplace led us to invest less than a year later and in every round since," said Sandy Sigal, CEO of NewMark Merrill Companies, an owner and developer of over 80 shopping centers and Chairman of BrightStreet Ventures, their venture capital arm. "Several years later, the customer growth, their ongoing product development, and the continuing value they have brought to our organization has only deepened our conviction and makes continued support a no-brainer for us."
Learn more about Placer.ai.
This report leverages location intelligence data to analyze the auto dealership market in the United States. By looking at visit trends to branded showrooms, used car lots, and mixed inventory dealerships – and analyzing the types of visitors that visit each category – this white paper sheds light on the state of car dealership space in 2023.
Prior to the pandemic and throughout most of 2020, visits to both car brand and used-only dealerships followed relatively similar trends. But the two categories began to diverge in early 2021.
Visits to car brand dealerships briefly returned to pre-pandemic levels in mid-2021, but traffic fell consistently in the second half of the year as supply-chain issues drove consistent price increases. So despite the brief mid-year bump, 2021 ended with overall new car sales – as well as overall foot traffic to car brand dealerships – below 2019 levels. Visits continued falling in 2022 as low inventory and high prices hampered growth.
Meanwhile, although the price for used cars rose even more (the average price for a new and used car was up 12.1% and 27.1% YoY, respectively, in September 2021), used cars still remained, on average, more affordable than new ones. So with rising demand for alternatives to public transportation – and with new cars now beyond the reach of many consumers – the used car market took off and visits to used car dealerships skyrocketed for much of 2021 and into 2022. But in the second half of last year, as gas prices remained elevated – tacking an additional cost onto operating a vehicle – visits to used car dealerships began falling dramatically.
Now, the price of both used and new cars has finally begun falling slightly. Foot traffic data indicates that the price drops appear to be impacting the two markets differently. So far this year, sales and visits to dealerships of pre-owned vehicles have slowed, while new car sales grew – perhaps due to the more significant pent-up demand in the new car market. The ongoing inflation, which has had a stronger impact on lower-income households, may also be somewhat inhibiting used-car dealership visit growth. At the same time, foot traffic to used car dealerships did remain close to or slightly above 2019 levels for most of 2023, while visits to branded dealerships were significantly lower year-over-four-years.
The situation remains dynamic – with some reports of prices creeping back up – so the auto dealership landscape may well continue to shift going into 2024.
With car prices soaring, the demand for pre-owned vehicles has grown substantially. Analyzing the trade area composition of leading dealerships that sell used cars reveals the wide spectrum of consumers in this market.
Dealerships carrying a mixed inventory of both new and used vehicles seem to attract relatively high-income consumers. Using the STI: Popstats 2022 data set to analyze the trade areas of Penske Automotive, AutoNation, and Lithia Auto Stores – which all sell used and new cars – reveals that the HHI in the three dealerships’ trade areas is higher than the nationwide median. Differences did emerge within the trade areas of the mixed inventory car dealerships, but the range was relatively narrow – between $77.5K to $84.5K trade area median HHI.
Meanwhile, the dealerships selling exclusively used cars – DriveTime, Carvana, and CarMax – exhibited a much wider range of trade area median HHIs. CarMax, the largest used-only car dealership in the United States, had a yearly median HHI of $75.9K in its trade area – just slightly below the median HHI for mixed inventory dealerships Lithia Auto Stores and AutoNation and above the nationwide median of $69.5K. Carvana, a used car dealership that operates according to a Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) model, served an audience with a median HHI of $69.1K – more or less in-line with the nationwide median. And DriveTime’s trade areas have a median HHI of $57.6K – significantly below the nationwide median.
The variance in HHI among the audiences of the different used-only car dealerships may reflect the wide variety of offerings within the used-car market – from virtually new luxury vehicles to basic sedans with 150k+ miles on the odometer.
Visits to car brands nationwide between January and September 2023 dipped 0.9% YoY, although several outliers reveal the potential for success in the space even during times of economic headwinds.
Visits to Tesla’s dealerships have skyrocketed recently, perhaps thanks to the company’s frequent price cuts over the past year – between September 2022 and 2023, the average price for a new Tesla fell by 24.7%. And with the company’s network of Superchargers gearing up to serve non-Tesla Electric Vehicles (EVs), Tesla is finding room for growth beyond its already successful core EV manufacturing business and positioning itself for a strong 2024.
Japan-based Mazda used the pandemic as an opportunity to strengthen its standing among U.S. consumers, and the company is now reaping the fruits of its labor as visits rise YoY. Porsche, the winner of U.S New & World Report Best Luxury Car Brand for 2023, also outperformed the wider car dealership sector. Kia – owned in part by Hyundai – and Hyundai both saw their foot traffic increase YoY as well, thanks in part to the popularity of their SUV models.
Analyzing dealerships on a national level can help car manufacturers make macro-level decisions on marketing, product design, and brick-and-mortar fleet configurations. But diving deeper into the unique characteristics of each dealership’s trade area on a state level reveals differences that can serve brands looking to optimize their offerings for their local audience.
For example, analyzing the share of households with children in the trade areas of four car brand dealership chains in four different states reveals significant variation across the regional markets.
Nationwide, Tesla served a larger share of households with children than Kia, Ford, or Land Rover. But focusing on California shows that in the Golden State, Kia’s trade area population included the largest share of this segment than the other three brands, while Land Rover led this segment in Illinois. Meanwhile, Ford served the smallest share of households with children on a nationwide basis – but although the trend held in Illinois and Pennsylvania, California Ford dealerships served more households with children than either Tesla or Land Rover.
Leveraging location intelligence to analyze car dealerships adds a layer of consumer insights to industry provided sales numbers. Visit patterns and audience demographics reveal how foot traffic to used-car lots, mixed inventory dealerships, and manufacturers’ showrooms change over time and who visits these businesses on a national or regional level. These insights allow auto industry stakeholders to assess current demand, predict future trends, and keep a finger on the pulse of car-purchasing habits in the United States.
