Polycam raises $18M to democratize 3D creation

Polycam is now available on the Apple Vision Pro, bringing their creator community and content to immersive 3D for the first time.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Polycam, the leading 3D creation tool for iPhone and Android, announces a $18M Series A led by Left Lane Capital and Adjacent with participation by Adobe Ventures and a stellar group of angel investors including Chad Hurley (YouTube), Shaun Maguire (Sequoia), Julien Chaumond (HuggingFace) and Barry McCardel (Hex). Using computer vision and AI, Polycam is building powerful tools for 3D creation and editing that enable anyone to easily make photorealistic 3D assets. With nearly 100k paid subscribers, strong revenue growth and an enthusiastic user base, Polycam solidifies its position as the leader in easy-to-use 3D capture and editing.

"The demand for 3D content is rapidly growing, accelerated by the release of the Vision Pro", says Chris Heinrich, co-founder and CEO of Polycam, "yet the 3D creator tools of today, which have steep learning curves and tedious workflows, are ill-equipped to meet this demand. We are democratizing 3D creation by building Polycam from the ground-up to be AI-first, cloud-first, and collaboration-first."

Polycam was founded three years ago by Chris Heinrich and Elliott Spelman, who had just spent two years working together at Ubiquity6, a startup ahead of its time working on 3D scanning and AR. "3D capture is where photography was at the start of the 20th century," says Spelman. "We see Polycam as the 3D equivalent of the Kodak Brownie camera - an easy way for millions of people to gain access to a magical, new kind of imaging technology." Since its launch in late 2020, Polycam has become the go-to app for making 3D scans with the iPhone's LiDAR scanner.

Building off the success of LiDAR scanning, Polycam has added cloud photogrammetry, Gaussian Splatting, 360 image capture, and a growing suite of tools for editing and collaboration. While iOS continues to be Polycam's largest channel, a growing number of customers use Polycam on the web and Android as well. Starting today, Polycam is also now available on the Apple Vision Pro, bringing their creator community and content to immersive 3D for the first time.

Polycam's customer base includes 3D creators making assets for VFX, video games, and AR/VR, as well as businesses in the AEC industries that share a common need of creating and managing digital 3D content. So far, Polycam users have made over 20M 3D models, performed over 50M 3D edits, and generated over 3M PBR textures.

"The founders, Chris Heinrich and Elliott Spelman, have the deep domain knowledge and technical nimbleness to position Polycam as the leader within the rapidly evolving 3D creation market. We have developed strong conviction in them as highly adept technical leaders, well-suited to steer a growing team on their product-led growth journey," says Harley Miller, CEO and Managing Partner at Left Lane Capital. "The incumbent 3D tools, such as Maya and Cinema4D, were created in the 90s and lack many of the features expected of modern creator tools, such as AI powered and collaborative workflows, that Polycam is building into the core of their product. We are confident that Polycam will continue to push the 3D market forward ahead of its peers, democratizing access for a new generation of 3D creators."

This investment brings Polycam's total funding to $22M, and will help Polycam hire engineers and researchers to expand their suite of creation tools and train AI foundation models for 3D reconstruction. To learn more visit https://poly.cam and follow Polycam on Instagram and Twitter @Polycam3D.

About Polycam

Polycam is the leading tool for photorealistic 3D asset creation on the App Store, Google Play,  and the web. Millions of individuals, and a growing number of businesses, use Polycam to capture, document, edit and share digital 3D content. With a focus on ease-of-use, and AI-assisted automation, Polycam's creative tools are simplifying workflows and lowering barriers for new 3D creators and seasoned professionals alike. To learn more visit https://poly.cam.

About Left Lane Capital

Founded in 2019, Left Lane Capital is a New York and London-based global venture capital and growth equity firm investing in internet and technology companies with a consumer orientation. Left Lane's mission is to partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs who create category-defining companies across growth sectors of the economy, including software, healthcare, e-commerce, consumer, fintech, medtech, and other industries. Select investments include Bilt, M1 Finance, Wayflyer, Kittl, Masterworks, Blank Street, Talkiatry, and more. For more information, please visit www.leftlane.com.

SOURCE Polycam