What is UrbanTech?
Technology has always shaped urban and suburban environments. Urbantech describes the emerging technologies that are being used to solve urban problems from reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions to reducing homelessness.
We created the Urbantech radar to allow us to quickly visualize companies according to their customers and their problem orbit. It reveals some interesting patterns about where founders and investors have chosen to focus, but also where there is open space and opportunity.
This radar contains data on
284 companies.
Orbits & Channels
We believe that startups will play a central role in re-imagining cities. We’re specifically concerned with sectors that have an outsized impact on city life:
Resources — Food, water, energy, waste, air, capital, and Internet connectivity are essential to city life.
Built Environment — Cities are also defined by their built environment, including real estate and physical infrastructure from roads to stormwater systems.
Local Government — Local governments are increasingly challenged with the need to provide more services more efficiently, with fewer resources.
Mobility & Logistics — A large portion of city life involves moving people and things within and between cities.
Channels - companies that focus on consumers are clustered on the upper right of the radar (B2C). On the upper left the focus is on business customers (B2B) and the lower cluster is for companies focused on sales to local government (B2G).
Using the Radar
Each UrbanTech startup is represented by a "blip." Hovering over the blip will reveal the company name and link to their website. You can use the search box or tags to find specific companies or groups of companies. Clicking "Show All" will return to the default view, showing all companies.
Sectors - blips can fall within one or more sectors to highlight their main customer and channel - Consumers/Citizens (B2C), Businesses (B2B) or Government (B2G).
More background at
http://urban.us/urbantech/