🔒Digital mapping firm charts next chapter with Canadian acquisition

Blue Marble Geographics, a private equity-backed mapping software company based in Hallowell, aims to expand its product palette through the acquisition of Toronto-based Avenza Systems Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed in Tuesday's announcement. The enlarged Blue Marble is backed by Eterna Growth Partners, a Boston-based buyout shop that invests in technology companies with enterprise values ranging from $50 million to $400 million, the firm said in a February news release. Blue Marble — whose clients include Chevron Corp., Accenture, General Motors Co., Amazon and NASA — said the tie-up merges complementary geospatial technologies, linking high-performance spatial analysis in the office with dependable field execution. “The combination of these two companies represents an important step forward for us and for our customers,” said Jeremy Parker, CEO of Blue Marble Geographics. “We are bringing together technologies that have each delivered strong value independently, and are making investments to unify the products, accelerate innovation and better support our customers’ operations across complex, real world environments,” he added.

'Complementary capabilities'

The combined entity has around 100 employees, including members of the Avenza team who are staying on under the new ownership, according to a spokesman for Blue Marble. “This is less about a traditional acquisition and more about bringing together two highly complementary capabilities under a single, unified company,” the spokesman said. Blue Marble recently added Patrick Stevenson as chief product offer, bringing two decades of experience in product developing and engineering innovation. “By uniting the capabilities of Blue Marble Geographics and Avenza Systems, we are now able to accelerate how geospatial workflows connect from the office to the field, helping bridge the digital and physical worlds where geospatial data is created, analyzed, and put into action,” Stevenson said. “Our focus is on enabling these workflows to function as a connected system, making it easier for customers to operate more efficiently and effectively across any environment,” he added.