Boulder-based Occipital raises $13M Series B funding round

BOULDER — Occipital Inc., a Boulder startup first known for its RedLaser barcode-scanning application, has closed a new $13 million Series B round of funding that the company will use to advance its Structure platform to make three-dimensional image capture and modeling a tool for the masses.

Boulder-based Foundry Group, as well as fellow existing Occipital investor K9 Ventures, participated in the Series B round along with Intel Capital, Grishin Robotics and Shea Ventures.

Occipital co-founder and chief executive Jeff Powers said in a phone interview Thursday that he expects the company to grow “pretty significantly” in the wake of the cash infusion. The company has about 20 employees now split evenly between its Boulder office at 1801 13th St., and a San Francisco office. The company lists five job openings on its website, at least three of which are for spots in Boulder.

Occipital’s Structure Sensor is a $379 hardware accessory that attaches to mobile devices such as an iPad that can quickly capture entire scenes in 3-D. The company also makes an SDK software product for creating applications for use with the sensor. Where the company aims to set itself apart from other 3-D sensing and reconstruction products already on the market is in providing an easy-to-use platform that requires no training at a fraction of the cost of professional systems.

The 3-D models produced from Occipital’s platform can be used for everything from loading content into video games or virtual-reality environments to 3-D printing and rapid prototyping. But it can also be used by, say, a contractor to create a 3-D model of a room within minutes and have precise measurements of everything in it without ever having to use a tape measure.

“It’s going to open up 3-D capture to a wider audience,” Powers said.

Occipital has already been pulling in revenue on the Structure Sensor since launching it on Kickstarter in 2013. Without divulging specific figures, Powers said the company has even been profitable in recent months.

Founded in 2008 by Powers and Vikas Reddy, Occipital went through the Techstars Boulder accelerator that year, selling RedLaser to eBay Inc. in 2010 for an undisclosed sum. At that point, Powers said the company sort of “started fresh.” A Panorama 360 app made capturing panoramic photographs quick and easy. Then came a $7 million round of funding in 2011 and the Structure platform soon after, with plenty of additional development on the product likely on the way with the help of the new cash infusion.

“We believe that as computer vision enables your devices to 3-D reconstruct and understand your surroundings, it will unleash a disruptive new wave of computing where software can operate over real world spaces,” the company said in a statement posted on its website this week. “This new funding will allow us to rapidly advance the Structure platform, and accelerate initiatives to bring spatial computing to everyday life.”

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