About Us

Our story

OpenCage started in 2013 as a project within Lokku, a company with a long history of using and supporting OpenStreetMap. Lokku's primary product was the real estate search engine Nestoria. In building Nestoria we learned a lot about the challenges of geocoding data from around the world. We also implemented the first ever commercial use of OpenStreetMap (all the way back in the internet dark ages of 2006!), and were one of the first companies to use OpenStreetMap maps instead of Google maps. In May 2015 Lokku was acquired by Mitula Group. The OpenCage project was spun out into an independent brand, and has run independently ever since.

Prior to July 2019, we operated as a UK limited company (OpenCage Data Ltd, UK Reg. no. 09485974, VAT number: GB251995573), before becoming a German GmbH. Details of that transition can be found on our blog.

Our service is built on open data (read all the benefits of open data). Of course our service wouldn't be possible without thousands of people and organisations worldwide who have contributed to the various open geodata projects we build upon. Thank you!

Join us

If working with APIs and large amounts of open geodata is your thing - and let's be honest, who can say no to that? - then perhaps you should join us. Please check out our jobs page.

Supporting geo-innovation

We organise #geomob, a regular meetup of location based service creators in various European cities, where we do our best to highlight geo-innovation in all forms.

Sign up for the #geomob mailing list, and please come along to our next event.

We're proud to be corporate members of

• the OpenStreetMap Foundation

• Association for Geoinformatics, GeoIT and Navigation e.V.

• OpenStreetMap United Kingdom CIC

We have a long-standing tradition of supporting the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team through financial donations. We also financially support the libpostal open-source project. We also regularly sponsor (and participate in) OSM related events and hackathons, including the upcoming State of the Map 2019. We hope to see you at a future event. Please say hello.

Finally, much of our own source code is open-source. We welcome your contributions!

Management Team

OpenCage is run by Ed Freyfogle - LinkedIn, OSM, twitter, github, personal site - and Marc Tobias - OSM, twitter, github.

Prior to OpenCage, Ed was co-founder of Lokku, the company that OpenCage spun out of (see above for our story). He started his career in the early days of the internet as the first developer at yahoo.de. He has an MBA from MIT, a degree in engineering from Duke University, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Weimar, Germany. Ed lives in Barcelona, where for fun he maps Sarrià/Tres Torres.

Marc Tobias is based in Münster, Germany. Before OpenCage he was the first employee at Lokku, before that he worked at Yahoo! in Silicon Valley and Munich. Prior to that he was one of the earliest members of the technical team at amazon.de. When not on the keyboard you can usually find him on a bike in the woods.

Where does the name OpenCage come from?

Open data is amazing but sometimes it's also wrapped up in a metaphorical technical cage that you need to be a bit of an expert to unlock. We're doing our best to open up that cage for you by making a very simple to use geocoder. If you have suggestions about how we can make it even simpler please let us know.

Learn more

If you've read this far you may enjoy reading/listening to:

• an interview with Ed on the MapScaping podcast
• an interview on the First Things First IoT podcast (produced by our long-standing customer Telit)

• this interview with API newsletter GET PUT POST

• this interview with Built in Perl

Stay informed

The best way to stay up to date on what we're up to is by following us on twitter or reading our blog.

Besides announcing new developments to the geocoder we also use the blog to regularly publish interviews with OpenStreetMap communities around the world and various open geo data projects and services. Please get in touch if you're doing something interesting with open geo data.