We soft-launched the Startup Genome API a couple weeks ago and are happy to officially announce it today. Developer community - go wild. We're also excited to announce an integration with the RepresentMap project.

Here's what you need to know about the API:

• We built it to enable the development community to access, update, and contribute new data to the ecosystem via their own applications; mobile, web, or otherwise.


• The API is accessible via the REST format.


• Documentation: http://startupgenome.com/api-documentation.


• Authentication is required to access the API's services. Currently, only curators have access to an API key, but eventually the API will be more broadly available to anyone with a Startup Genome account.


• To access your API key, become a curator and then simply visit your public profile while you're logged in - your API key is provided at the top of the page.

We're also excited to announce an integration with RepresentMap.

RepresentMap came out of a project by Alex Benzer, Tara Tiger Brown and Sean Bonner to map the Los Angeles startup community. The response they got was so positive that they decided to share the code with other startup communities. Since then some 30 cities around the world have adopted it.

Now with the Startup Genome API and the integration with RepresentMap available, aspiring map-makers around the world have three great options to choose from:

The "just embed it" option:

If the maps on Startup Genome are good enough for you, you can either send people straight to the Startup Genome page (ex: Omaha) or you can grab the embed code on any Startup Genome map and place it on your site so you can increase the value of your existing website and continue to send all the traffic there instead of startupgenome.com. You can resize it to your liking. Go ahead and make it yours. Here's an example of Chile's map embedded on the NorthSur website.

The completely custom option:

If you're building something completely custom, you can hook into our API to pull Startup Genome data down and display it on your site however you wish, as well as contribute data back to Startup Genome. That way you'll capture any data that people or curators add into the Startup Genome database, and your city's data will be always be contributed back to the global database. You could even avoid building log-in functionality into your app - people can just update their profile on Startup Genome and the updates will sync back to your site.

The best of both worlds:

Spin up a version of RepresentMap for your city on your own domain and turn on the built-in Startup Genome sync option. This way:

• you get a beautiful map on your own domain thanks to RepresentMap.


• you can invite other people to help curate your city's data using the Startup Genome curation back-end.


• your map can be pre-seeded with the data from Startup Genome.


• people have the ability to update their company profiles over time. Your map stays fresh.


• you get to feel warm and fuzzy inside because you're contributing back to Startup Genome's global database.

Instructions for setting it up are built into RepresentMap's instructions here: https://github.com/abenzer/represent-map/blob/master/represent-map/setup.txt

Bonus: In any of the above situations, people and companies that move to new cities or open new offices won't have to maintain multiple profiles. They'll only have to update their Startup Genome profile and boom - they'll be added/removed/updated to any map or directory that is synced to Startup Genome.