Appen to Acquire Quadrant to Expand Mobile-Location Based Data Collection Offering

Appen Limited (ASX:APX), the leading provider of high-quality training data for organizations that build effective AI systems at scale, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Quadrant, a global leader in mobile location data, Point-of-Interest data, and corresponding compliance services.

Quadrant and Appen’s unified business will be strongly positioned to deliver high-quality data to organisations that rely on geolocation for their business. Quadrant’s Geolancer product, delivering accurate, up-to-date, and manually verified POI data, will expand its global reach and scale by tapping into Appen’s global crowd of over one million workers in over 170 countries. With the acquisition, we expect Geolancer to become the market-leading POI platform.

Founded in 2014, Quadrant provides mobile location data, POI data, and data compliance services that enable enterprise customers to perform location analytics and derive location-based intelligence. Quadrant’s proprietary Geolancer platform provides authentic, accurate, and up-to-date POI data, manually verified on the ground by crowd workers. For location and mobility data, Quadrant has over 450 million unique devices seen per month in nearly every country, with delivery frequency as low as 5-minute intervals. Quadrant’s data collection application includes a blockchain enabled data privacy consent management platform that tracks consent to use, store, manage, and share data.

To acquire 100% of the share capital of Quadrant, Appen will make an upfront cash payment of US$25 million and a potential additional payment of up to US$20 million in Appen shares to be issued upon achieving revenue milestones in 2022 and 2023.

Appen – based in Sydney, Australia and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:APX) with offices worldwide – deploys the industry’s most advanced AI-assisted data annotation platform, working with a global crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors speaking over 235 languages, in more than 170 countries. Leveraging technology, expertise, and the global crowd, Appen gives leaders in technology, automotive, financial services, retail, healthcare, and governments the confidence to deploy world-class AI products. In 2019, Appen launched its crowd code of ethics and is a global champion for Responsible AI, working with leading organizations such as the World Economic Forum to raise awareness on the ethical implications of each step along the AI supply chain.

“The acquisition of Quadrant enables Appen to increase our addressable market and to expand our product and service offering to our customers to include more mobile location and POI data capabilities,” said Mark Brayan, Appen’s Chief Executive Officer. “We already have the broadest AI training data offering in the industry, and we see an opportunity to grow in the mobile location and POI data space. With Quadrant’s Geolancer and our global crowd, we will be strongly positioned to serve customers’ scale, speed and quality requirements.”

“In an ever-changing world, organizations are searching for data to help understand what is happening in the physical world.” said Mike Davie, CEO, Quadrant. “The shared vision of Quadrant and Appen to improve solutions with strong data is an exciting next step, enabling our clients to solve big problems that matter.”

About Appen Limited

Appen collects and labels images, text, speech, audio, and video used to build and continuously improve the world’s most innovative artificial intelligence systems. With expertise in more than 180 languages, a global crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors, and the industry’s most advanced AI-assisted data annotation platform, Appen solutions provide the quality, security, and speed required by leaders in technology, automotive, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and governments worldwide. Founded in 1996, Appen has customers and offices around the world.

About Quadrant

Quadrant provides location data and location-based business solutions that are fit for purpose, easy to use, and simple to organise. Quadrant’s proprietary Geolancer platform provides authentic, accurate, and up-to-date Point-of-Interest data, manually verified on the ground. For mobile location data, the company observes over 450 million unique devices per month which helps companies understand patterns of movement in the real-world. Quadrant also offers a blockchain-based Consent Management Platform for app developers and publishers who seek GDPR and CCPA compliance.

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