Let’s face it: The startup name of Sewichi never quite rolled off the tongue. A combination of the Korean words se (three) and wichi (location), founder David Shim said the name was always meant as a placeholder of sorts.

But the Seattle startup is growing up, ditching the Sewichi name and transitioning to the moniker of Placed.  The company also is announcing today that it has scored $3.4 million in startup financing from Madrona Venture Group, Shane Atchison and others. As part of the round, Madrona’s Matt McIlwain has joined the board.

David Shim

“We chose the name Placed because it clearly describes what we do as a company, we assign location data to a place,” said Shim. Placed is just now starting to take the wraps off the service, an offering that allows mobile app developers to make better sense of location data.

Placed employs 10 people, with plans to grow the team in 2012.

“In the next year we plan on aggressively growing the team and technology with the goal of making Placed synonymous with location analytics,” said Shim, who previously worked at aQuantive, Farecast and Quantcast. The company also just released Placed for Developers, a software kit designed to help developers make more sense of location-based data.

Previously on GeekWire: Madrona incubates new mobile analytics startup Sewichi

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