St. Pete tech firm gets $42 million investment

Spatial Networks Inc., a St. Petersburg company that uses geography to solve business problems, closed on a  $42.5 million funding round led by Kayne Partners, the growth equity group of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, and Kennet Partners Ltd.

Spatial Networks, headquartered in First Central Tower in downtown St. Petersburg, will use the funding to scale its sales and marketing, accelerate product development and expand its data collection platform into international markets, a news release said.

Jim Grady

The Series A funding round is the first outside investment listed for Spatial Networks on business information website Crunchbase.

Spatial Networks also has a new CEO, Jim Grady, who has more than 25 years of general management and leadership experience in high-growth technology companies. Grady most recently was CEO of Cellebrite Inc., a cyber/digital intelligence software firm that is noted for extracting data from locked mobile phones.

Anthony Quartararo, who founded Spatial Networks in 2000, is now president of Spatial Networks’ Foresight data service, according to the company’s website.

Spatial Networks develops and provides geospatial data intelligence solutions, powered by artificial intelligence and used by companies with workers in the field, such as utilities, construction, environmental services and engineering firms.

Using Fulcrum, Spatial Networks’ software platform, field workers can rapidly gather a lot of data, including audio and video, through user-built forms with geotagging capabilities, the news release said. That lets key decision-makers get real-time insights into field operations efficiency and performance.

Spatial Networks has more than 30,000 users and 2,100 customers.

“We are thoroughly impressed by Spatial Networks’ rapid growth and user adoption,” said Nate Locke of Kayne Partners. “The company provides incredible value both for users in the field who now have a streamlined, robust data-collection process, and for decision makers who now have access to contextually relevant information and geospatial insights.”

The combination of Spatial Networks’ founding team with Grady’s leadership and executives Grady has previously worked with, will enable the company to scale rapidly and become a category leader, said Javier Rojas, Kennet Partners’ managing partner.