Mapillary
Corporate brand
UnclaimedMapillary is a crowdsourced street-level imagery and geospatial data platform acquired by Meta in 2020.
Last updated August 22, 2026
Overview
Mapillary is a Swedish crowdsourced mapping and computer-vision platform that enables people, organizations, and public agencies to capture, share, analyze, and use geotagged street-level imagery. Its coverage includes ordinary photographs, panoramic images, and 360-degree imagery collected while walking, cycling, or traveling by car. The service was developed by Mapillary AB, a remote-oriented company based in Malmö, with the stated aim of making street-level visual data broadly available for mapping and machine-learning applications. The project began in September 2013 under the leadership of co-founders Jan Erik Solem, Johan Gyllenspetz, Peter Neubauer, and Yubin Kuang. An iPhone application followed in November 2013 and an Android application in January 2014, giving contributors a relatively simple way to build geographic image coverage outside the commercially controlled ecosystems of conventional street-view providers. Mapillary's contribution model made the platform particularly relevant to OpenStreetMap contributors, humanitarian mapping projects, transportation departments, municipalities, and researchers working on visual recognition. The platform expanded rapidly during its early years. It introduced support for panoramic and spherical photographs in 2014, while its image collection grew from roughly half a million photographs in May 2014 to more than 100 million by November 2016. In 2015 the company raised seed financing led by Sequoia Capital, followed by an $8 million financing round in 2016 involving Atomico, Sequoia, LDV Capital, and PlayFair. A further investment led by BMW i Ventures in 2018 brought reported total financing to approximately $25 million. These funds supported international operations, additional computer-vision expertise, and a San Francisco office. Mapillary developed beyond a simple image-sharing service. In 2017 it released the Mapillary Vistas Dataset, an annotated collection of street-level images designed for object-recognition and autonomous-driving research. The company also introduced Mapillary Tasker, a beta workflow for organizing community assignments such as collecting missing imagery, making map edits, and checking object detections. In 2018 it released a software development kit that allowed third-party applications to integrate Mapillary image capture. The same period saw collaborations with Amazon involving image analysis for extracting text from street signs, as well as the incorporation of large image contributions from the Vermont and Arizona transportation departments. Mapillary's imagery is generally distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, with related permissions for certain derived data used in OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia Commons. This licensing approach helped make the platform useful as an open-data complement to proprietary street-view products, although commercial use and dataset integration can involve additional licensing conditions. Facebook, now Meta Platforms, acquired Mapillary in June 2020 for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Mapillary announced that commercial use of its imagery and data would be made available without charge. The transaction prompted concern among some OpenStreetMap users about the future independence and continuity of a service heavily used for mapping contributions. In response to those concerns, a synchronization tool was developed to transfer data between Mapillary and KartaView, formerly known as OpenStreetCam. Mapillary continued to expand its image repository and reported reaching two billion photographs in August 2023. It remains a recognizable platform within crowdsourced mapping, transportation-data collection, and geospatial computer vision, while operating under Meta ownership.
History
Mapillary began in September 2013 as a project intended to crowdsource street-level imagery for computer-vision and mapping applications. Its founders were Jan Erik Solem, Johan Gyllenspetz, Peter Neubauer, and Yubin Kuang. The first iPhone application was released in November 2013, followed by an Android application in January 2014. These mobile tools made it possible for contributors to collect geotagged images while walking, cycling, or traveling by car, creating a distributed alternative to centrally operated street-view fleets. The service added panoramic and spherical imagery in 2014. Its image base grew quickly, reaching approximately 500,000 images in May 2014, more than 5.5 million by December 2014, 10 million in March 2015, 20 million in June 2015, and more than 100 million by November 2016. This growth made Mapillary valuable to OpenStreetMap contributors and other users requiring current visual information in places not covered adequately by commercial mapping providers. Mapillary raised $1.5 million in seed capital in January 2015 in a round led by Sequoia Capital. In March 2016, it raised a further $8 million from Atomico, Sequoia, LDV Capital, and PlayFair. The company stated in 2018 that an investment led by BMW i Ventures brought total reported funding to approximately $25 million. The financing supported expansion, recruitment in computer vision, and the establishment of a San Francisco office. The company broadened its role from an image repository into a platform for data processing and developer integration. In May 2017 it released the Mapillary Vistas Dataset, a 25,000-image subset with pixel-level annotations intended for training and evaluating street-scene recognition systems. In November 2017 it released Mapillary Tasker in beta, allowing task creators to request help with coverage, map edits, and object-detection verification. In 2018 Mapillary released an SDK for third-party image capture and announced a collaboration with Amazon to use Rekognition for extracting text from street signs. It also acquired or accepted major image contributions from the Vermont and Arizona departments of transportation, each contributing approximately five million images. Mapillary changed its imagery licensing from a noncommercial Creative Commons license to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike in April 2014. Its imagery became usable under CC BY-SA 4.0, while related GPX tracks and certain derived datasets had separate permissions. Special provisions supported the creation of data for OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia Commons. This open-data orientation was central to the service's role in collaborative mapping, although commercial incorporation of research datasets could require separate licensing. In June 2020 Facebook acquired Mapillary for an undisclosed sum. After the transaction, Mapillary made commercial use of its imagery available without charge. The acquisition generated concern among some OpenStreetMap users who depended on Mapillary and feared that Facebook might discontinue or restrict the service. A subsequent synchronization tool enabled transfers between Mapillary and KartaView, formerly OpenStreetCam, providing a degree of continuity for contributors. Mapillary continued to expand after the acquisition and reported reaching two billion images in August 2023. The brand remains associated with crowdsourced geospatial imagery, transportation mapping, open mapping communities, and computer-vision datasets, while its corporate ownership rests with Meta.
- 2023
Two-billion-image milestone
[1]Mapillary reports reaching two billion images.
- 2020
Acquired by Facebook
[1]Facebook acquires Mapillary for an undisclosed amount.
- 2018
SDK and transportation-data expansion
[1]Mapillary launches a capture SDK and adds large image datasets from Arizona and Vermont transportation agencies.
- 2017
Mapillary Vistas Dataset released
[1]The company publishes a 25,000-image, pixel-annotated dataset for street-scene recognition research.
- 2017
Mapillary Tasker enters beta
[1]A workflow tool is introduced for coordinating capture, editing, and image-verification tasks.
- 2016
Expansion financing
[1]Mapillary raises additional venture funding to expand operations and computer-vision capabilities.
- 2015
Seed financing
[1]The company raises reported seed financing led by Sequoia Capital.
- 2014
Android application and panoramic imagery
[1]Mapillary releases its Android application and adds panoramic and spherical photo support.
- 2013
Mapillary project begins
[1]The founders begin developing a crowdsourced street-level imagery service in September.
- 2013
First iPhone application released
[1]The initial mobile capture application launches in November.
Products and positioning
An open and community-powered alternative or complement to proprietary street-view services, focused on scalable street-level imagery, mapping, and computer-vision data.
Crowdsourced mapping platform · 2013
Mapillary imagery platform
The core service stores and distributes geotagged street-level photographs contributed by individuals, organizations, and public agencies. It supports ordinary images, panoramas, and 360-degree photographs, with capture modes suited to walking, cycling, and vehicle-based collection. The imagery is used for map improvement, transportation inventories, municipal analysis, humanitarian work, and computer-vision development.
Computer-vision dataset · 2017
Mapillary Vistas Dataset
Released in 2017, Vistas is an annotated subset of Mapillary's street-level imagery designed for object recognition and street-scene understanding. Its pixel-wise annotations make it useful for training and benchmarking systems intended to identify signs, vehicles, road users, and other elements in complex urban environments. Academic use was encouraged, while commercial product integration could require licensing.
Developer tool · 2018
Mapillary SDK
The SDK introduced in 2018 allows third-party software developers to integrate Mapillary-compatible image capture into their own applications. It extends the platform's collection network beyond the official applications and supports specialized workflows for mapping, transportation, field surveys, and other location-based data projects.
Community workflow tool · 2017
Mapillary Tasker
Tasker is a beta coordination tool introduced in 2017. It allows project organizers to identify areas needing imagery, map edits, or verification of automatically detected objects, while contributors can browse tasks and select work suited to their interests and capabilities.
Marketing campaigns
- 2018Amazon street-sign analysis collaboration
United States · Municipal transportation and parking
Mapillary announced a collaboration using Amazon Rekognition to identify parking signs and extract text from street imagery. The intended application was to help a large U.S. city improve its sign inventory and develop a parking-related application.
Outcome. The collaboration was presented as an early practical use of large-scale street imagery and automated visual analysis for municipal services.
Brand decisions
2020
Acquisition by FacebookM&ABackground
Mapillary had developed a substantial global imagery repository and a community relevant to mapping and computer vision.
Action taken
Facebook acquired Mapillary for an undisclosed amount.
Aftermath
Mapillary became part of Meta's corporate group, and commercial use of its imagery was subsequently made available without charge. Some OpenStreetMap users expressed concern about continuity and independence, contributing to interest in data synchronization with KartaView.
2018
Launch of the Mapillary capture SDKProduct launchBackground
Mapillary wanted to increase the number and variety of applications able to contribute imagery.
Action taken
The company made an SDK available to third-party developers for integrating image capture.
Aftermath
The SDK opened additional collection channels for mapping, field-survey, mobility, and transportation applications.
2017
Release of the Mapillary Vistas DatasetProduct launchBackground
Researchers and autonomous-driving developers needed diverse, labeled street-scene data for computer-vision training.
Action taken
Mapillary released a 25,000-image subset with pixel-level annotations for object-recognition research.
Aftermath
The dataset positioned Mapillary as a source of training data as well as a repository of mapping imagery.
2014
Switch to a more permissive share-alike imagery licenseStrategyBackground
Mapillary sought to make its imagery more useful to collaborative mapping and open-data communities.
Action taken
The imagery license was changed from CC BY-NC to CC BY-SA, later associated with the CC BY-SA 4.0 framework.
Aftermath
The change strengthened Mapillary's usefulness for OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia Commons, and other projects that could comply with attribution and share-alike requirements.
Recent events
- 2023
Mapillary reaches two billion images[1]
Other
The platform reported that its repository had reached two billion images, illustrating the scale of its global contributor and agency network.
- 2020
Facebook acquires Mapillary[1]
M&A
Facebook acquired Mapillary for an undisclosed amount. Afterward, commercial use of Mapillary was made available without charge.
- 2018
Mapillary announces Amazon collaboration[1]
Other
Mapillary announced a collaboration using Amazon Rekognition to analyze imagery and extract text from street signs for transportation and parking-related applications.
- 2018
Mapillary releases its capture SDK[1]
Product launch
A software development kit enabled third-party developers to incorporate Mapillary image-capture functionality into their own applications.
- 2018
Mapillary receives investment led by BMW i Ventures[1]
Other
Mapillary announced a new investment led by BMW i Ventures, bringing its reported cumulative financing to approximately $25 million.
- 2017
Mapillary releases the Vistas street-level imagery dataset[1]
Product launch
Mapillary published an open-source subset of its annotated image collection for academic and commercial research into object recognition and autonomous-driving systems.
- 2017
Mapillary introduces Tasker[1]
Product launch
The beta Tasker tool organized community work involving image capture, map editing, and verification of detected objects.
- 2016
Mapillary raises additional venture funding[1]
Other
An additional financing round involving Atomico, Sequoia, LDV Capital, and PlayFair supported international growth, computer-vision hiring, and a San Francisco office.
- 2015
Mapillary raises seed financing led by Sequoia Capital[1]
Other
Mapillary secured its first reported institutional financing to support development and expansion of its crowdsourced imagery platform.
- 2014
Mapillary launches support for panoramic and spherical imagery[1]
Product launch
The platform expanded its capture capabilities to include panoramas and spherical photographs, broadening the types of street-level imagery contributors could produce.
Sources1 sources
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