With an interesting play in fusing private sector innovation and civic and governmental needs, San Francisco-based startup UrbanLeap announced seed funding today. The company, which offers a single platform for city officials to evaluate technologies, connect with vendors, and adopt solutions, today announced $4.2 million in seed funding. StageOne Ventures led the round along with participation from existing investor lool Ventures.
One of the company’s early customers is San Mateo’s SMC Labs, a smart region initiative designed to use modern innovation and “smart technologies” to address regional issues.
Jon Walton, SMC Labs CIO said, “We must continuously leverage new technologies to better serve those who live in, work in, and visit San Mateo County. The key is to adopt technologies that enable better, faster sharing of information, and help render our core services more effectively. Being a smart region requires working with smart solutions, and UrbanLeap helps us engage, evaluate, organize, and manage all of the startups and use cases that we currently have in our lab environment — to ultimately ensure we’re choosing the right providers.”