During June of this year, Qualcomm invested into a virtual reality firm, leading a $30 million funding round for 3D image capture and software startup Matterport. Later in Oct, it divested its AR holdings and sold its Vuforia unit to PLC.

Qualcomm praised Matterport for its work in both the real estate and in virtual reality. Its future, however, could be in smartphones. Its software could help consumers automatically reconstruct 3D digital environments captured by cameras and sensors on their devices.

“As 3D sensors become mainstream in smartphones, we believe the bigger opportunity for Matterport lies in mobile,” said Patrick Eggen, senior director of Qualcomm Ventures. Qualcom is investing heavily and betting big on Mobility driven VR via its Snapdragon line of products.

Who is Matterport and why are they strategically important to merit $30 million investment? And more importantly what have they been up to in the last six months?

Mountain View-based Matterport makes technology that allows for digital reconstruction of real places for viewing online or on virtual reality devices. It is focused on the real estate market right now, allowing agents to showcase properties on the Web in new ways, such as zooming in, taking accurate measurements of rooms and rearranging furniture.

Its technology offering includes all the different aspects of Shoot to Showcase (S2S) processes for a 360 experience.

 

 

Just as YouTube gave people the power to share their videos with anyone, anywhere, Matterport intends on empowering users to create virtual environments from real spaces and share them on current and future VR platforms. Currently, Embedded WebGL, combined with HDR visuals, lets anyone experience total immersion right from their browser or VR headset. You can in fact try it at matterport.com.

Although there have not been a whole lot of press releases from Matterport following June, the company has been very busy in scaling its technology and attracting new customers and getting ready for the HMD onslaught.

In Aug, Associated Press released its first news feature in fully immersive 3D and virtual reality with the help of Matterport technology. This was followed On Sept 21st, it reported how its technology is helping apartments.com boost user engagement. In November, they have posted about eleven unique 360 experiences ranging from Oxford University museum of Natural history, Booth western art museum to some top picks in real estate. Known as “the castle on the hill”, Artemesia is a spectacular private estate situated on nearly two acres of secluded forest in upscale Hollywood Hills. The 13,290 square foot residence is the largest Arts and Crafts-style home in the world.

For folks exploring commercial applications of 360 video and beyond, this is a great success story so far! Please explore more at www.matterport.com