Adobe and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley are investing in Polycam, smartphone software that takes 3D images.
Left Lane Capital, Adobe Ventures, Hurley, and others made a $18 million Series A investment in Polycam. Polycam co-founder and CEO Chris Heinrich said the funding will fund additional 3D editing and collaboration tools, AI model training for rendering 3D objects, and market development.
Heinrich and Elliott Spelman met at Ubiquity6, a mobile 3D scanning and AR firm, and formed Polycam in early 2021. Heinrich and Spelman believed that 3D capture, made possible by technology like the lidar sensor on more recent iPhones, may enable widespread 3D content production.
Heinrich told Eltrys in an email interview that 3D capture technology is far from flawless and not as straightforward as shooting a shot with an iPhone. The good news is that AI-driven 3D capture, along with Polycam’s massive data, will drastically enhance quality and ease-of-use over the next several years, unlocking additional use cases and increasing adoption.”
Polycam has a variety of 3D capture and modeling capabilities for diverse applications.
Polycam can scan a user’s house in 3D on iPhones with lidar sensors. Photogrammetry is used in the app’s “Photo Mode” on mobile and online devices to produce 3D representations of items. Polycam captures smartphone “photo spheres” and 360-degree skyboxes. The program also offers a collection of free 3D models from the Polycam community for use in projects like video games.
Polycam makes money by charging $100 per year for pro-use features.
Smartphone applications for 3D object capture are available. Luma is one. Polycam has profited from market consolidation in recent years, with Niantic purchasing Scaniverse, Discord buying Ubiquity6, and Snap buying Th3rd.
Heinrich said Polycam has approximately 100,000 paying clients and over 10 million iPhone and Android app downloads.
He said, “Polycam was cash flow positive for numerous months in 2023 and has strong revenue growth.” We’ve not been noticeably affected by the tech slowdown, achieving strong revenue growth despite adverse macroeconomic conditions.”
Why raise outside funds? Heinrich pledged to “expand more aggressively” by adding AI-powered features, business subscription levels, and tripling its 22-person staff by 2025.
Heinrich said Polycam is extending to Apple’s Vision Pro AR headset, which will be a priority in the coming months. Heinrich said Polycam is training AI models to cover gaps in 3D object scanning, which will improve scan quality.
He remarked, “Even the best scans suffer from bad and incomplete data—for example, an inability to scan the underside of a sofa or car.” “AI comes in.”
