Terria scales up with global ambitions in geospatial tech
Terria, a geospatial technology startup specialized in organizing and visualizing complex spatial data, has officially spun out of Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. Terria is now poised to expand its reach globally following a successful seed investment round led by Main Sequence, Australia’s deep tech investment fund.
The company’s platform integrates thousands of mapping and information layers, making spatial data accessible and actionable for users. Terria also simplifies the creation of digital twins – virtual replicas of buildings, cities, regions and countries – enabling advanced modelling and 'what-if' scenario analysis.
This seed funding will support Terria’s mission to address critical global challenges, including urban planning, the energy transition and environmental monitoring, helping governments, organizations and communities shape a more sustainable future.
Making data understandable
Professor Elanor Huntington, CSIRO’s Digital, National Facilities and Collections executive director, said the national science agency was proud to have incubated Australia’s newest tech start-up. "It is very exciting to watch research turn into technology with real-world impact, and in this case, to form the foundation of a new stand-alone company," Huntington said. She added that CSIRO exists to foster Australian innovation and to help take that innovation out into the world. "We are extremely proud of the Terria team – geospatial visualization makes the enormous amount of global data understandable and accessible for everyone."
Two former CSIRO employees will lead Terria: Ana Belgun, Terria CEO and product lead, and Amber Standley, chief experience officer. "Terria started in 2014, when the first open-data, open-source Australian government platforms were created to help any organization or individual to access and visualize spatial data," Ana Belgun said. "Since then, millions of users have accessed over 15,000 datasets on Terria mapping platforms."
Digital twins
In its next phase, Terria plans to scale the positive impact it has already created for Australian companies and government agencies, expanding its advanced tools to a global audience. These tools will enable the creation and management of digital twins across various domains. With the geospatial data market projected to experience significant multi-billion-dollar growth in the next three years, Terria aims to help organizations consolidate, access and utilize spatial data more effectively.
Mike Nicholls, partner at Main Sequence, highlighted that Terria addresses a significant challenge in mapping and data management within our built and natural environments: how to effectively catalogue, visualize and analyse all the spatial data associated with a given location. "We first saw Terria a few years ago in the CSIRO Data61 lab and loved the products and how they were being adopted by users," he said.
Nicholls added: "A typical city street has thousands of datasets and plans for buildings, streets, footpaths, electricity, water, sewage, telecommunications, parks, stations, transport, planning and the natural environment. Terria can bring all that data together integrating 80 different formats and visualize this on one map. We are excited to help spin this company out and look forward to them growing a huge customer base over the coming years."

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