Sensors are growing more and more
sophisticated as we build machines that can interpret the world with more
precision than we can.
Occipital is aiming to do this as effectively
and cheaply as possible as it morphs its 3D scanning technology into a product
that can do much, much more. The company has closed $12 million of what it
plans to be a $15 million Series C. The round is being led by the Foundry
Group. The company has raised about $33 million to date.
With this round, Occipital is looking to
expand its tracking platform into what it calls its “Perception Engine,” which
will require it making some deeper moves into machine learning, pushing into
technologies that reside outside of simply defining the geometry of a space.
The startup wants its tracking tech to recognize people and identify objects.
SF-based Occipital has moved around a little
bit within the tracking space as it’s sought to find a worthwhile niche. The
company’s $379 Structure sensor allows users to 3D scan their environment and
objects using the high-frame-rate depth camera that attaches to the back of an
iOS device. Occipital’s Canvas software solution allows customers to use the
camera to develop more refined CAD models. The company later introduced a mixed
reality dev kit that brought positional tracking to the iPhone.
The company’s latest bet is bringing quality
inside-out tracking to products with its monoSLAM tech that tracks devices in
space using a single camera and an IMU. Though AR/VR remains an obvious
application, Occipital announced at CES that it has partnered with Misty
Robotics. As its focus moves closer toward the market that Intel’s RealSense
and other large companies have been aiming to capture, Occipital has its sights
set higher than before with some new cash to do so.
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