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The story
Founded by Alexander Sysoev and Marina Sysoeva on Apr 25, 1999.1
Emergence of DoubleGIS
The project originated within the Novosibirsk company Technograd Plus. It was engaged in the production of professional geographic information systems by order of NGTS and other organizations. On the mass market, "Tekhnograd Plus" offered several circulations of CDs with the map of Novosibirsk. The company also released a CD "Construction Companies and Organizations", a supplement to the newspaper "Stroyka".
In 1998, after the crisis, many customers "Tekhnograd Plus" were unable to pay for expensive development of "not the first need. There was a need to find new customers and ways to apply GIS. Moreover, a lot of pirated copies of CDs had been dispersed from the previously released ones, and it became pointless to sell them.
It was decided to release a free product that would serve as a demo version of a professional GIS. The experience with the "Stroyka" newspaper showed that the electronic directory, united with the city map, could be of interest to advertisers. Alexander Sysoev formulated the concept of the new project: free distribution and return on investment through advertising. The product was named DoubleGIS: GeoInformation System plus City Information Guide.
Early years
The first release of DoubleGIS was released on April 25, 1999. In the spring of 2001, the interface of DoubleGIS 2.0 was developed, a bit later the company's web-site was launched and an updates service appeared.
At first, the company tried to cooperate with third-party organizations - it bought databases, applied to advertising agencies, invited specialists to create a rubricator. But this practice proved ineffective. The company decided to develop its own services for each of the basic business processes. That's why in the same year of 2001 information and sales departments started to be formed.
In 2002, the DoubleGIS application was distributed free of charge on CDs to 15 thousand offices of Novosibirsk.
Further development
In 2004 the project was spun off into an independent business unit - "DoubleGIS" LLC. In the same year DublGIS opened its first branch office in Omsk, as well as concluded commercial concession agreements with partners in Tomsk, Barnaul, and Novokuznetsk. That was the moment of DublGIS expansion into Russian cities.
In 2006 the company launched online and Windows Mobile version of the guidebook. DublGIS in Novosibirsk split into a managing company and a branch to sell advertising positions.
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In 2007 a franchise in Odesa and branches in Chelyabinsk and Perm were opened.
In 2007, DoubleGIS 3.0, a new version of the program with an interface in the style of MS Office 2007 is released.
In 2010, the first CodeFest IT conference is held.
In 2011, the company conducts a rebranding, as a result of which, the products are called 2GIS (DvaGIS). After 12 years after the first release, 2GIS is brought to the capital - the Moscow directory is released. Release of mobile applications for Android and iOS.
In 2012, 2GIS is released in the Italian cities of Venice and Padua. This is the first release outside of the CIS.
In 2013, the company earned 3 billion rubles, another corporate identity update takes place. Foreign expansion continues: 2GIS appears in the Czech Republic and Cyprus. An application for Windows Phone is released. The concept and interface of the new 2GIS is announced.
2014: Several more new markets, including Chile. In August 2014, a map of Dubai is released, the web version of 2gis.ua with maps of Ukrainian cities is launched.
In December 2014, the company seriously expanded its headquarters in Novosibirsk by buying half of the 22-story Sun City business center in Novosibirsk. The transaction amounted to more than 1 billion rubles, the loan for the purchase was issued by Sberbank.
In 2015, it was included in the top ten employers in Russia according to HeadHunter. According to the results of 2020, 2GIS became the best employer in the HeadHunter rating in the "Medium-sized companies" category (the number of employees is from 251 to 1,000 people).
In October 2015, 2GIS raised equity financing for the first time. Baring Vostok and ru-Net funds allocated $40 million to the company for the development of new products, active promotion in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major Russian cities, as well as the launch of the service in foreign emerging markets.
In November 2015, 2GIS entered Kyrgyzstan, with Bishkek as its first city of presence.
In November 2016, the company abandoned the projects that had not gained the expected audience, and optimized the staff. Vera Garmash, president of the company, said that the optimization affected less than 5% of the specialists of the management company and the network of its own branches.
In the same month, 2GIS and Rambler announced the beginning of their collaboration. Its first result was a unified search for organizations in all Russian cities on Rambler&Co sites.
In April 2017, 2GIS launched pedestrian navigation with construction of walking routes on its maps.
In July 2017, the company released travel guides for the largest cities in its countries of presence. The guides include descriptions of major attractions, dining and shopping.
In September 2017, 2GIS introduced the ability to leave reviews of companies and give them ratings. In the spring of 2019, users began to be given virtual rewards for a large number of reviews, photos and clarifications - information about changes in reference and map data that had not yet appeared in 2GIS.
In November 2017, the company entered into a cooperation agreement with the Chinese company Huawei. As a result, Huawei and Honor smartphones, which are sold in Russia, began to pre-install the 2GIS application. Earlier, LG, Fly, DEXP and Micromax started pre-installing the service on their Russian models. 2GIS has also signed similar pre-installation agreements with Samsung.
In March 2018, Apple built data on companies from the 2GIS directory into its Russian maps.
In April 2018, Road Events appeared on 2GIS maps: information about speed cameras, traffic accidents, potholes, and so on. The service allows users to publish on the map not only reports of incidents, but also their photos.
In August 2019 "2GIS" started working in Uzbekistan, the first city was Tashkent.
In November 2019, 2GIS added a global map of Russia and the ability to build a long-distance route.
In December 2019, 2GIS launched a service in Baku, Azerbaijan.
In June 2020, 72% of 2GIS is bought by Sberbank, another 3% of the company goes to O2O Holding LLC, a joint venture between Sberbank and Mail.ru Group. In the Sber ecosystem 2GIS has engaged in the development of tools for the integration of maps and a directory in the applications of the ecosystem and for third-party companies. One of the first examples of cooperation is the 2GIS map in the application of the "Samokat" express grocery delivery service.
In April 2021, 2GIS announced its investment and acquisition of 47% of the Belarusian company RocketData (legal entity - Data Deliveri LLC), which develops b2b services for managing reviews, data in online directories, on maps and in social networks.
From Wikipedia’s article on 2GIS, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4