SAN DIEGO – Having worked for the City of San Diego as Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer and Director of Economic Development, Erik Caldwell knows his way around economic development reports.
President & Co-founder
Metropolis IQ Technology
He also knew that data-driven research that helps jurisdictions attract new businesses, keep current companies thriving and drive investment, not to mention bring better job opportunities and greater tax revenues, was ripe for disruption.
Last December, he started Metropolis IQ Technology Inc., with Josh Shapiro, chief impact and strategy officer for UC San Diego Extension, and Kate Spitzer coming on as the company’s VP of Engineering.
In June, Metropolis IQ launched MIQ Insights and MIQ Rapid Reports, which “enable governments to be more agile, more responsive, and ultimately, more effective in serving their communities,” Caldwell said, and paving the way for more informed and efficient operations.
Leveraging proprietary AI and big data from various sources, including federal censuses, the Federal Reserve, and other public and proprietary datasets, subscriptions to MIQ Insights for municipalities and organizations start at about $199 a month. There’s also a higher-priced option of $399 a month for reports with more bells and whistles.
The SaaS and generative AI company is changing the landscape of economic development data reporting, as well as updating and improving workforce development reporting, helping municipalities and workforce agencies make informed policy decisions.
Metropolis IQ has already begun taking in revenue from early customers, including the cities of Carlsbad and San Marcos as well as other municipalities in the San Francisco Bay area. The company has its sights set on exponential growth in the $21 billion government reporting industry.
Caldwell said about two-thirds of the total market investment for the company has come from the co-founders. He said the company completed a $150,000 family and friends fundraising round earlier this year and is “approaching $300,000,” with more needed ahead in order to grow and expand.
MIQ at some point will be able to offer other reports in addition to economic development and workforce development.
Caldwell said the company “runs lean and costs are,” slim but that it is preparing to move away from “operating like a ‘lifestyle mom-and-pop business’ to moving back toward what you would expect a VC-funded company to look like.”
He said it is possible that Metropolis IQ would look to raise $1 million over the course of 12 months and scale the company.
The Genesis of Metropolis IQ
“Josh and I were sitting together having a beer talking about data reporting, really about some of the challenges that existed in that industry,” Caldwell said. “It was super expensive, and it took a long time to do the work and to deliver to customers. We started thinking about better ways to provide that information to cities, counties, workforce agencies and economic development organizations.”
Caldwell said the two spent six months doing some early research into development around generative AI and machine learning “just to see if we could do it.” They talked to 60 different workforce and economic development agencies around the country understanding their pain points before launching their first products this past June.
Feedback Caldwell received showed “a lot of people who sold raw data, a lot of people who did dashboards and visualizations,” he said, “but there were very few ways in the market for somebody, at least inexpensively, to get that contextual analysis that says, ‘Here’s your data and here’s what you do with it, here’s how you can actually use this information to improve the outcome in your particular community.’”
Most economic developers are not economists, they’re “generalists who need help interpreting the data,” Caldwell said.
Caldwell said that typically government reporting involves high costs, outdated data and lengthy production times. Metropolis IQ has quick turnaround – hours instead of weeks or months — and offers cost savings to government entities. Metropolis IQ also provides automated, continuous updates with no additional costs.
“It’s also giving an overview that’s tailored to your community that tells you this is what the data means and then specifically these are what policymakers in your community could do with this data to improve the outcome on the ground,” he said.
Spitzer called working with Metropolis IQ “an amazingly exciting place to be right now.”
“I feel like we’re making a contribution to cities and counties with the ease of reporting, and making it available to jurisdictions that in the past haven’t had the opportunity, because they don’t have a budget for it and they don’t have a staff to develop these reports for themselves,” Spitzer said. “So they’re kind of at a loss. We’re making these things using cutting-edge technology and making the whole process better. We’re taking how the things work traditionally and disrupting it all.”
Metropolis IQ Technology
FOUNDED: 2023
PRESIDENT: Erik Caldwell
CO-FOUNDERS: Erik Caldwell, Josh Shapiro, Kate Spitzer
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: SaaS
WEBSITE: metropolisiq.io
CONTACT: info@metropolisiq.io
SOCIAL IMPACT: Co-founder Caldwell is a board member of CONNECT – San Diego.
NOTABLE: The company has three provisional patents pending
