Matthew Griffiths and Jon Gosier dream of clean data. The pair formed Metalayer to sort and visualize any kind of information gleaned from just about any source. The DreamIt Ventures backed company grew out of Gosier's 2007 company Ushahidi, founded in Africa to collect and map eyewitness reports of violence in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election.
Griffiths and Gosier met in Uganda, and although neither is Ugandan, both profess a love for all things African. "We met two years before Metalayer, working to find signal in noise," says Griffiths. "We identified key bits of information in times of crisis." Ushaidi's
SwiftRiver project was awarded the 2011 Knight News Challenge.
Both came to the United States this year, where Gosier was raised (Griffiths hails from the UK), and realized that Ushaidi's algorithm could have verticals in other industries, particularly journalism. "Our passion is tools for better data narratives." For example, you might want to mash up a real time Twitter feed with XML, email, and a document you downloaded onto your hard drive. You might be looking for certain keywords.
Once Metalayer gathers data from diverse sources, the user can create infographics or visualize it on a map. Griffiths recalls that the whole process began by going through the motions of research themselves to understand the steps that human brains take. Gosier put together a
video to explain the way the application works.
As far as revenue, Gosier says the idea is to package the technology. "We plan to offer the underlying APIs to developers. The application will be available for businesses or individuals to use." One potential revenue source is governments, which could use Metalayer to pre-empt or respond rapidly to uprisings and crises.
Gosier says Metalayer has virtually no competition because the only other companies doing this kind of data mash up are at a very high level, working for the military. "In that landscape, there are a couple of key players at the top."
Metalayer, now in talks with investors, is looking to hire in the area of business development. In addition to being a DreamIt company, Metalayer is also supported by the
Comcast Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program.
Source: Jon Gosier, Matthew Griffiths, Metalayer
Writer: Sue Spolan