The investment division of the giant Ikea furniture group has put money behind a British mapping service that uses a grid of 57 trillion squares, each with a unique three-word name, to help to pinpoint addresses.
Ingka Investments has backed what3words with nearly £12 million to help to launch it in new international markets.
The company was set up in London in 2013 to tackle poor and inaccurate addressing, which it says remains a problem in developing and developed countries alike.
What3words has divided the world into a grid of three-metre squares, each with a unique combination of three words that are randomly assigned and will stay the same. For example, the door of 10 Downing Street is “slurs.this.shark”.
The system is more precise than
