No VC funding. No commercial agenda. Just a better place for cave data to live.
The K.E.E.P. grew out of a simple frustration: cavers doing incredible work in the field had no good place to put it. Survey teams duplicated effort because there was no way to know what others were working on. Grottos dissolved and took their records with them. The knowledge existed — it just had nowhere to live that would outlast the people who collected it.
What the community needed wasn't just a database — it was a platform. A place where grottos meet, survey teams coordinate, regional leads steward their areas, and decades of fieldwork get preserved in a form that the next generation can actually use. That's what the KEEP is built to be.
This isn't a commercial product. There's no VC money behind it, no plan to sell your data, and no advertising. It's built and maintained by cavers who were frustrated by the status quo and had the skills to do something about it.
Every design decision starts with one question: does this serve cavers? No feature ships because it looks impressive in a demo. The platform exists to make field cavers more effective.
Sensitive cave locations are protected at the data model level — not as an afterthought. Access is scoped, audited, and revocable. You control what you share and with whom.
Automatically extracted data is flagged as unverified until a human confirms it. Every claim carries its source, author, and date. There's no pretending the data is better than it is.
There's no freemium tier withholding features you need. The goal is a better-documented cave resource for the US — that's it.
For those who want to evaluate the technical foundation:
PostgreSQL 16 + PostGIS · FastAPI (Python) · React 18 · MapLibre GL JS · Docker Compose · Redis
AI extraction and classification via Anthropic Claude (optional, toggleable). PWA-ready frontend with offline IndexedDB cache. Non-root Docker containers with resource limits. Daily automated backups.
Questions, feedback, grotto onboarding, or just want to know more? Reach out directly.
For grotto onboarding or access requests, use the Create an Account button — registration includes a message field where you can describe your grotto or organization.