Gainesville-based Paracosm has secured $800,000 in private and public funding to advance its 3D modeling and navigation software.
The funding includes $300,000 — announced this week — from the Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research. The institute, which has an office in the University of Florida Innovation Hub, funds and mentors companies that spin out of state university research and private research institutions.
Paracosm is using technology developed at UF, according to a news release.
Funding from the institute requires a private funding match.
Paracosm’s private funding includes $500,000 total from “angel” investors in Gainesville and South Florida, and the Vegas Tech Nimbus Fund, CEO Amir Rubin said.
The company is developing software that uses computer-aided design (CAD) to convert depth cameras into 3D mapping systems.
“We plan to disrupt the professional 3D scanning industry by enabling users to scan a space using readily available cameras, upload their data to a cloud infrastructure that converts the scan to a CAD file and download their model for use in any 3D CAD modeling tool of their choice, and funding from the Institute will help us to get there faster,” Rubin said.
Rubin, 32, co-founded Paracosm in January. The company has 15 full-time employees in Gainesville and three who work remotely from Silicon Valley in California.
Paracosm has contracts with Google, NASA and ESRI, which supplies geodatabase software.