British venture company UK 3rd  who developed location information technology that conveys places with pinpoint in three words announced on November 6 that it will raise funds from Sony’s corporate venture capital “Sony Innovation Fund”.  Although the amount is not disclosed, the cumulative amount of funds raised from the foundation in 2013 to this time is estimated to be 43.5 million pounds (about 6.2 billion yen).

what3words is a location information system that divides the whole world into 57 trillion grids and expresses individual location information with three words. A single grid is a square of 3 meters square, which can be specified up to a fine position that was impossible with conventional addresses. Moreover, because it is designed on the premise of speech input, it corresponds to 26 languages , words are all meaningful words.

Currently it provides services on the Web and smartphone applications (iOS / Android), and there are moves to utilize it for voice input such as car navigation systems. Automobile manufacturer Daimler acquired 10% of what3words shares in 18 years. In June the Japanese car navigation giant Alpine also contributed.

In addition, even in vast places it is possible to designate positions on a pinpoint, taking advantage of the postal service of countries such as Mongolia, Djibouti and Tonga, the national land investigation of Finland, the program of rural development and land reform Ministry of South Africa countries and local governments around the world Has begun to be adopted in public service. Especially in Mongolia it is contributing to solving social problems of delivering things to nomads living while moving.

Mr. Toshimoto, Sony’s executive officer, said, “what3words solved the big challenge of inputting accurate location information to the machine by voice. The dramatic penetration of voice-activated systems, like what3words, A simple voice geocoder that can be used on any digital platform or channel and can read and write (a system that acquires latitude / mildness from an address etc) is exactly what is needed in the world right now. ”