echo3D's Alon Grinshpoon told us about the recent $5.5 million investment, explained how the company plans to change the way 3D, AR, and VR content is stored and streamed, and spoke about the platform's content management system and delivery network.
echo3D
The echo3D team consists of 3D industry experts and passionate 3D/AR/VR enthusiasts, focusing on providing the easiest way for 3D/AR/VR developers to scale up their 3D applications and immersive content.
A little bit of background on me – I'm Alon Grinshpoon, CEO of echo3D. I received my MSc in Computer Science from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science specializing in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality, and human-computer interaction. I received my BSc as a double major in Computer Science and Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Tel Aviv University specializing in software engineering, computer communication networks, and cyber security.
I'm a former Mellanox (now NVIDIA) engineer, a graduate researcher at the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory of Columbia University, and a research and teaching assistant in the fields of computer networks and distributed cloud networks. I'm a Techstars alum, NYC Media Lab alum, member of the Virtual World Society, and a speaker at major AR/VR tech conferences worldwide. I wrote my thesis on an "Augmented Reality Guidance System for Endovascular Surgery" and have published five additional papers about systems and methods for augmented reality (AR) hand-free guidance.
Our Chief Operating Officer (COO) is Koren Grinshpoon. He holds an LLM from Columbia Law School specializing in SaaS subscription policies, an LLB in Law, and a Graduate Diploma in economics from Tel Aviv University specializing in privacy by design and open source licenses, and has worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP as a technology & IP transactions associate, where he helped tech companies address issues relating to IP development and doing business online. He is an author of publications about the use of automatic subscription renewals and free trial offers by tech companies. Koren is a Techstars alum and an NYC Media Lab alum and is admitted to practice as an attorney in New York.
Koren and I are twin brothers and are no strangers to working together side-by-side on numerous successful projects, ranging from high-school science fairs to award-winning pitches at international events. echo3D is our first commercial venture together combining our engineering and business experiences.
Our brother-from-another-mother and our co-founder is Ben Pedazur. Ben is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of echo3D. He is a former engineering manager at Cisco and a former founder of a startup in the augmented reality space with over 10 years of experience working in software development, computer networks, and 3D. He holds an MSc in electrical and electronics engineering from Tel Aviv University specializing in computer vision, and a BSc in electrical and electronics engineering from Afeka Academic College of Engineering specializing in digital image processing. He is proficient in backend development and cloud computing work.
Together, our team devotes 200% of our time to building the echo3D platform and to redefining how people create 3D/AR/VR experiences by building a flexible cloud infrastructure, an intuitive content management system, a fast content delivery network, and other best-in-class tools for 3D/AR/VR developers. We are all big believers in 3D, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) and are the right team to tackle the challenges facing the 3D/AR/VR space.
Funding Round
We secured a $5.5 million investment led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from our existing investors, Remagine Ventures, Konvoy Ventures, and Space Capital LP. The announcement comes on the heels of Qualcomm's previously announced Snapdragon Metaverse Fund and a short 6-months after echo3D’s previous $4 million raise back in October 2021.
I believe "The Metaverse is here and echo3D is building the tools and network infrastructure to support it. This is a monumental point in time for the Metaverse and the AR/VR ecosystem, and we are excited to have the support of Qualcomm Ventures as echo3D continues to build the backbone of the next Internet."
The Metaverse market is set to reach $783.3 billion in 2024 vs. $478.7 billion in 2020. This surge highlights the tremendous challenge the industry still faces: providing backend infrastructure to support the 3D, AR, and VR applications running on these devices, reducing file sizes and development times, and improving usability for developers and users alike.
echo3D's Cloud Platform
We offer a 3D-first content management system (CMS) and delivery network (CDN) and a scalable BaaS infrastructure that enables developers to build a 3D/AR/VR/Metaverse app backend in minutes and to manage, process, and stream 3D content to their 3D/AR/VR/Metaverse app or game in real-time and across devices.
3D/AR/VR apps are difficult to scale. Our cross-platform cloud service solves that. Today, many developers struggle to create scalable and dynamic 3D/AR/VR applications (for healthcare, education, commerce, training, etc.). It is painfully accepted that 3D applications are huge (700MB+ on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store) with large periodic update bundles ("seasons" that require you to download an additional 1GB+ every couple of months).
3D/AR/VR apps remain single-user experiences with static and hard-to-update content. It’s difficult to update 3D content across different platforms (i.e. different mobile smartphones, headsets, and smart glasses, and devices) which often have platform-specific specifications. Developers struggle to attract users since any change in the app results in endless development and redeployment cycles. With echo3D's cloud platform for 3D and XR content management and distribution, all these become a breeze.
Content Management System and Delivery Network
Our cloud platform is specially built to (1) handle, convert, and compress 3D models, interactive content, and animations, (2) reduce overall app size by moving 3D assets to the cloud, (3) provide fast 3D asset streaming from the closest server available, (4) obtain interaction analytics & usage metrics, and (5) auto-generate no-code interactive 3D experiences.
Our cross-platform system supports any 3D/AR/VR client-side SDK for developers to choose to build their apps, such as Oculus SDK, ARCore, ARKit, Vuforia, WebXR, AR.js, Unity-based SDKs, MagicLeap, and more. By using our solution, 3D/AR/VR developers save time on building & maintaining an app backend, and quickly go from development, to testing, and to production.
The Metaverse
The Metaverse is widely considered the next version of the Internet, now in 3D. As noted, we believe the Metaverse is here and echo3D is building the tools and network infrastructure to support it. We are among the first to shine a light on the importance of backend infrastructure in the frontend-heavy ecosystem of 3D/AR/VR/Metaverse and are excited to have the support of Qualcomm Ventures as echo3D continues to build the backbone of the next Internet.
In the same way that cloud services revolutionized the 2D-based Internet and web/app development, we believe that the 3D-based Metaverse and 3D/AR/VR apps and experiences require a cross-platform backend infrastructure and tools in order to scale. Accordingly, we decided to build that for all 3D/AR/VR developers and companies out there.
Our vision is that 3D/AR/VR/Metaverse app builds should be tiny, update packs should be small and frequent, and developers should expect user-generated content (UGC) through bi-directional content streaming. With our tech, that vision is a reality: echo3D allows you to reduce app size by moving 3D assets to the cloud, publish updates easily and frequently, automatically obtain app analytics, and compress & convert 3D assets to and from multiple formats.