OpenGov makes its first acquisition, buys Ontodia

OpenGov will use Ontondia's open-source solution to give governments more data and transparency

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OpenGov is a company with a laudable mission: to use cloud technology to bring efficiency and transparency to government. That means bringing data about budgets and spending onto a single dashboard for all to see. 

Now OpenGov will be able to provide even more information as the company announced its first acquisition on Wednesday, buying Ontodia, a provider of Open Data and performance management solutions. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Founded in 2010, Ontodia provides solutions for unlocking open data for government, developing its solutions based on CKAN, an open-source data portal for governments, which powers websites like Data.gov, as well as hundreds of Open Data solutions for cities, counties, states, and national governments. Ontondia's services include Analytics-as-a-Service,  Data Publishing, and Data Services.

By incorporating Ontodia's technology, and open-source data, OpenGov will be adding two new capabilities to its platform: publicly-available CivicDashboards, which expand OpenGov's existing government financial data by adding Ontodia's preloaded maps and longitudinal data from sources such as the U.S. Census, Department of Labor Statistics, and the FBI. Customers will also have access to customized performance dashboards.

OpenGov customers will also be able manage their open data using CKAN. That means they can augment their OpenGov data with on-premise or cloud-hosted Open Data libraries, giving them more insights into their financial performance and allowing them to develop additional applications.

All Ontodia employees, including Joel Natividad and Sami Baig, the company's co-founders, are joining OpenGov and will work in OpenGov's New York office. Natividad, who had been CEO of Ontodia, is now Director of Open Data at OpenGov. The team will continue to work on making CKAN enterprise-ready and building key open data and performance management capabilities for OpenGov.

"It’s been a long (yet worthwhile!) journey, and we couldn’t be happier to continue our efforts by joining OpenGov," wrote Natividad and Baig in a blog post.

"Not only do they share our values, mission and ambition to help create the 21st Century connected government we expect and deserve, combining forces with OpenGov will greatly accelerate and amplify our shared ambition."

All of Ontodia's products and services are currently still available and OpenGov is actively working on an integration roadmap.

Founded in 2012, the Redwood City-based OpenGov was founded on the premise that technology can transform governing. The company provides financial management and transparency software to governments. Basically, they make it easy to play with, and visualize, all the budget and spending data for local governments.

Now those capabilities will be expanded thanks to Ontodia's open-source data.

"Adding CKAN and CivicDashboards to the OpenGov platform provides immediate value for governments looking to leverage financial and performance insights to inform their decisions, fulfill transparency and Open Data initiatives, and ultimately improve public services. We’re excited to get to work delivering these benefits to current and future customers,"  Zac Bookman, Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, wrote in a blog post. 

By combining the two companies together, governments will more easily be able to share information with each other, including budgets  for shared infrastructure projects, or criminal movement across regions. It will allow driverless cars to get real-time traffic and infrastructure data.

"This acquisition accelerates the launch of the connected government era. Over the coming years, we will continue to develop solutions based on the newest technologies and grounded in the wisdom of the thousands of government leaders in the OpenGov Network," Bookman wrote.

"We will keep working tirelessly to give our customers the tools they need to connect and thrive. Our governments need and deserve the best technology, and it is our civic duty to empower them."

OpenGov's customers include small, medium and large cities; counties, special districts, universities and various agencies. 1 in 5 cities in California use OpenGov and 1 in 3 counties in the State. The company also announced a partnership with the State Treasurer of Ohio in 2015 to bring OpenGov to every governing entity in the state, all 3,962 of them. 

It has more than doubled its customer base since the beginning of the year. It now works with more than 1000 governments in 45 states. 

OpenGov has raised $48 million in funding, including a $25 million round in October of last year.