Mapping is a big boy’s game, with Google Maps, Bing Maps, and MapQuest dominating maps on both the Web and mobile. But sometimes it takes a startup to push things forward. 3D mobile mapping startup UpNext is hoping to get on the map, so to speak, with its detailed 3D maps of cities and venues like the Super Bowl stadium. The New York city startup, which has been around since 2007, just raised a $557,000 series A round of preferred shares, according to an SEC filing. That amount includes $57,000 that converted from a previously-undisclosed friends-and-family round in 2009. The new round is $500,000 and investors include Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, David Cohen of TechStars (who invested individually), David Tisch and Oleg Tscheltzoff

Co-founder Danny Moon says the company will use the funds to expand its platform from its own mobile and iPad apps to become an underpinning technology for “travel guides, resorts, event planners, amusement parks, to name a few,” which can incorporate UpNext’s 3D maps into their own apps. UpNext allows a level of detail not seen in most mapping technologies, including directories of business inside specific buildings or the ability to zoom down to the seat level inside a stadium, as it showcased with its Super Bowl app.

UoNext will also keep pushing with its own iPhone app. “We’re creating exciting new technology to enable users to explore cities, visually. Think an interactive, social city model that changes in realtime,” hints Moon. Realtime, in 3D,—what more could anyone ask for?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/30/upnext-ipad-fluid/