After $300K Kickstarter, Fuel3D Bags Further $2.6M For Its High-Res 3D Scanner & Talks Early IPO

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Back in the summer we covered Fuel3D’s Kickstarter campaign for a high res scanner that can turn real world objects into 3D models with accurate geometry and colour — a companion device for the rise in ownership of 3D printers (which of course need 3D blueprints to print).

Fuel3D went on to raise more than $300,000 via its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and today the technology that came out of the U.K.’s Oxford University has further added to its war chest for continued development and getting the product to market — snagging $2.6 million in early stage financing from a syndicate of private investors, led by Ben Gill of London-based Chimera Partners.

It’s also talking early IPO, with plans to follow this tranche of external funding with a mezzanine financing round, expected to take place before the summer — and, possibly, an initial public offering as early as 2015.

“We have established a core group of shareholders that have taken a long term view on the technology and management of Fuel 3D Technologies,” said Gill, commenting on the funding in a statement. “The 3D printing market is the focus of significant investor interest at the moment, and Fuel 3D’s disruptive technology feeds that interest from a unique angle. We are actively exploring a number of interesting financing options, including the possibility of an early IPO.”

Fuel3D said the big response to its Kickstarter campaign, which had only been aiming to raise $75,000 so pulled in 4x that original target, helped it draw interest from the broader investment community.

“We had a phenomenal response to our product on Kickstarter and the attention this generated led to many enquiries from the broader investment community,” said Stuart Mead, CEO, Fuel 3D Technologies, in a statement. “We have always been confident that our technology has the potential to revolutionize the industry and are delighted to have found a group of ambitious and well-resourced investors who share our vision.”

While Fuel3D is not the first to build a high resolution 3D scanner by any means, its focus on making such high end tech affordable — putting a sub-$1,000 price-tag on the device for its Kickstarter campaign — is presumably what’s especially exciting investors here.

The expected retail price of Fuel3D’s device will actually be $1,500 — albeit, that’s still far below rival high res scanners which it says retail for $15,000+.

Fuel3D’s device also breaks from the relatively rigid turntable model for scanning objects, such as the rival Photon 3D scanner, allowing for more freestyle scanning. So, for instance, human faces can be captured in situ — i.e. on people’s necks — without having to do any kind of separating of head from body.

The other focus for Fuel3D is on capturing accurate colour and detailed texture, offering wide scope for its scanner beyond the 3D printing space — i.e. for use by 3D artists, animators, game designers and so on.

Fuel3D’s original Kickstarter campaign was aiming to ship to the earliest backers in April, with additional shipments penciled in for July and September as it worked through to fulfill orders.

Fuel3D Handheld 3D Scanner

Fuel3D Handheld 3D Scanner 3D printers seem to be all the rage these days – and in the days to come ahead, too. Well, we have seen some pretty interesting stuff which were churned out by a 3D printer, including someone who decided to print his very own Aston Martin, or how about a rifle which could fire approximately 14 shots before it broke? Of course, we also have our attention drawn to the 3D printed Liberator gun that could be smuggled across checkpoints and even into the Israeli parliament. The Fuel3D handheld 3D scanner might help accelerate the growth of home-grown 3D projects, and all for less than $1,000.

In a nutshell, the Fuel3D is a handheld, high resolution 3D scanner that is capable of capturing 3D photos of real-world objects and subjects, and depending on what you do with the captured information on the software later on, you are able to transform those into a 3D model complete with accurate geometry and color, now how about that? This remains as a Kickstarter project at the moment with a funding goal of $75,000, and it will most like be realized since there are 31 days of its campaign left with less than $10,000 required.

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  • Fuel3D Handheld 3D Scanner original content from Ubergizmo.

        

    Fuel3D brings point-and-shoot 3D scanning prototype to Kickstarter

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    As a seemingly endless stream of companies work to bring the world its first truly mainstream desktop 3D printer, a number of folks are attempting to bridge a fairly fundamental disconnect: how to best help the average consumer get their hands on 3D models in the first place. Databases are a decent solution — Thingiverse has a devoted community of makers working around to clock to create cool things for us to print out. Simplified software can work, too, but that still requires some artistic talent on the part of the creator. 3D scanners seem to be the most popular solution these days, from Microsoft’s Kinect to MakerBot’s lazy Susan-esque Digitizer.

    Fuel3D is the latest company to take its entry to Kickstarter. The handheld 3D scanner is based on a technology developed at Oxford University for medical imaging purposes. Now the company is looking to bring it to market at under $1,000, offering full-color, high-res 3D scans through simple point-and-shoot execution. Once captured, that information can be exported for things like the aforementioned 3D printing and computer modeling. The first three folks who pledge $750 will get their hand on a pre-production model and those who pony up $990 will receive the triangular final version. The company expects to ship in May of next year — assuming it hits that $75,000 goal, of course. After all, Fuel3D can’t exactly print money — yet.

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    Source: Kickstarter