Maps.me (styled as MAPS.ME) is a mobile app for

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, iOS and BlackBerry that provides offline maps using

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data. It was formerly known as MapsWithMe. In November 2014, it was acquired by Mail.Ru Group and became part of its

My.com My.com is an international subsidiary of VK that offers Internet-related services and products. My.com is working under brands and services myMail, myChat and Maps.Me. My.com is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with a U.S. office locat ...

brand. In September 2015, the app was

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and a

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version was additionally made available on F-droid until the application was sold to the payment processor Daegu Limited, part of Parity.com, which changed the application user interface and content, which led the free software community to develop an ad- and tracker-free fork called '

Organic Maps Organic Maps is a free and open-source offline mobile map and navigation app for Android & iOS. It is based on top of crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap data. The app is privacy-focused and has 0 trackers in it. It is a fork of Maps.me application, whic ...

' in response.

History

First, the whole team has developed an application in Belarus and

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. Maps.me was founded by Yury Melnichek, Alexander Borsuk, Viktor Govako and Siarhei Rachytski. Under the leadership of Alexander, MapsWithMe got its first 2.5M users worldwide. Yury Melnichek was leading the project from November 2013 until April 2016 when Evgeny Lisovskiy took over. In early 2017 the philosophy of the app changed, leading it to be supported by adverts. On Nov 2020 Mail.ru Group sold Maps.me to the payment processor Daegu Limited, part of Parity.com, which changed the application user interface and content, which led the free software community to develop Organic Maps in response.

MapsWithMe GmbH

The application was initially developed by Zurich-based MapsWithMe GmbH with a development office in Minsk. In 2012, MapsWithMe came in first in the

Startup Monthly A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...

competition in Vilnius. The team won a nine-week traineeship in Silicon Valley as a prize.

Mail.ru Group

In November 2014, Maps.me was acquired by Mail.Ru Group for 542 million rubles (around US$14 million at that time) to be integrated with

, and the app was made free of charge. The engineering team was relocated to the Mail.Ru Group office in Moscow to continue working on the project. In 2019, its revenue amounted to 159 million rubles (US$2.5 million) with an EBITDA loss of 25 million rubles (US$0.39 million).

Daegu Ltd and partners

On November 2 2020, Daegu Limited bought Maps.me for 1.56 Billion Russian rubles (some US$20 million at 2020's exchange rate). Daegu Limited is announced to be part of Parity.com Group. Regarding the question, who is really responsible, there are two main groups involved. The first is Parity.com AG, which is part of Convexity Holdings AG from Switzerland. The second is the global TMF Group, a partner of Parity.com Group, which has a dependence office in Cyprus. Regarding the App Stores from Android and Apple, there is Maps.Me (Cyprus) Limited and Stolmo Limited. Regarding the policy of maps.me both fit to the responsibility to TMF Group in the same office in Nicosia. According to the search engines there is still no visible proof of what Daegu Limited is and if Parity.com AG is the same as Parity.com Group. In summary there are currently five companies involved: Daegu Ltd, Parity.com AG/Group, TMF Group, Stolmo Ltd, Maps.me (Cyprus) Ltd.

References

External links