what3words

what3words is a location-addressing brand based in London, United Kingdom. Its core system divides the surface of the world into three-metre-by-three-metre squares and assigns each square a distinctive three-word address. The system is designed to describe precise locations that may be difficult to identify through conventional street addresses, postal codes, road names, or latitude-and-longitude coordinates. The company was founded in 2013 by Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen, Mohan Ganesalingam, and Michael Dent. The idea emerged from difficulties associated with communicating precise locations in events and logistics contexts, where conventional addresses could be incomplete, inconsistent, or unsuitable for entrances, temporary venues, rural areas, or points within large sites. what3words turned that location reference into a consumer-facing and business-facing product by presenting coordinates in a short, human-readable form. Its principal offering is the what3words addressing system, accessed through a website and mobile applications and integrated into third-party services through developer tools and APIs. Users can search for a place, convert a location into a three-word address, share that address, and navigate to it using compatible mapping or navigation services. Businesses and organizations can incorporate the system into applications and operational workflows such as delivery, mobility, travel, emergency response, event management, automotive navigation, and customer directions. The brand’s positioning centers on making precise geolocation easier to communicate. Unlike a traditional street address, a three-word address can identify a specific entrance, meeting point, loading area, trail location, or otherwise unnamed point. The service is therefore complementary to, rather than necessarily a replacement for, conventional mapping, navigation, and geocoding systems. Its practical usefulness depends on language support, availability of compatible applications, network access, and the accuracy with which users select or share a location. what3words operates internationally and presents its service as a global location standard for people and organizations. It remains a privately held business. Publicly available material supplied for this entry does not establish a complete account of its financing, ownership structure, revenue, executive leadership, geographic subsidiaries, or individual commercial partnerships. Those details are therefore not asserted here.

what3words was established in 2013 by Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen, Mohan Ganesalingam, and Michael Dent. The founders developed the concept of using short combinations of words to identify very small geographic areas after encountering practical problems with conventional addressing and location communication. Street addresses and postal systems are not consistently available worldwide, and even where they exist they may not identify a particular entrance, temporary venue, rural point, or precise meeting location. The company’s system divides the world into three-metre squares and gives each square a unique three-word address. This approach converts a geographic reference into a phrase intended to be easier for people to read, remember, communicate, and enter than a long coordinate string. The service is delivered through the what3words website and mobile applications, while businesses can use software interfaces to add the addressing method to their own products and workflows. The brand has been positioned as a layer that can complement conventional maps and navigation systems. A user may use a three-word address to identify a destination and then pass that destination to a compatible navigation service. Organizations may also use the system to collect delivery points, direct customers to specific entrances, identify locations at events, or describe places that do not have conventional postal addresses. The available reference material for this dossier confirms the company’s founding, core addressing method, private status, London base, and international operating scope, but does not provide a sufficiently reliable chronological record of product releases, financing, ownership changes, executive appointments, campaigns, legal disputes, or financial performance. Such events are not added without verifiable supporting material.

1. 2013Company founded

   what3words was founded by Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen, Mohan Ganesalingam, and Michael Dent to develop a human-readable alternative or complement to conventional location references.

   Source

Provides a simple, human-readable geocoding and location-sharing solution for navigation, logistics, mobility, travel, events, and other applications requiring precise places.

• what3words address systemGeocoding and addressing

  The company’s core system partitions the world into three-metre-by-three-metre squares and assigns each square a unique three-word identifier. The address can be used to communicate a precise place, including locations that lack a conventional street address or that require a more specific reference than a building-level address.

• what3words mobile applicationsMobile location application

  The mobile applications allow users to search for three-word addresses, convert a selected location into a three-word reference, share locations, and use compatible navigation workflows. They provide a consumer-facing way to access the company’s addressing system.

• Developer APIDeveloper platform

  The developer offering enables external applications and services to work with three-word addresses and location conversion. It is intended for use cases such as delivery, mobility, navigation, customer directions, event operations, and other workflows that need precise location input or output.

1. what3words official website