- The hardware-as-a-service robotics and proptech startup, Giraffe360, raises a $16M Series A round led by Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley VC that has backed companies like SpaceX, Spotify, and Airbnb.The round is also joined by existing investors LAUNCHub Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, HCVC (Hardware Club), and Change Ventures.
- Alongside the equity raise, Giraffe360 secured additional $6M in long-term loans from the UK venture debt provider Columbia Lake Partners.
- The fresh capital will be used to support the launch of the new Go Cam AI camera of Giraffe360, which will bring more innovation to the way virtual tours are done in the proptech industry.
The Series A round announcement comes 2 years after the $4.5M seed round of the Latvia-born and UK-based company that was led by the Sofia-based LAUNCHub Ventures and the London-based Hoxton Ventures. Founders Fund which leads the latest Series A round of Giraffe360, has a fascinating investment management team, including Delian Asparouhov, the Bulgarian co-founder of Varda Space Industries, which is building the world’s first space factories, and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, and author of of the bestselling book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.
“After being involved in a number of PropTech startups such as OpenDoor, we’ve recognised that some of these tech forward companies aren’t having their needs met, which means that the mass market definitely isn’t having their needs met. Giraffe360 was a no-brainer, and is really well suited to meet the needs of the market from both the hardware and software front,” Delian Asparouhov, Principal at Founders Fund, comments on the investment.
Proptech in post-COVID times
After the global pandemic made remote-first the norm in pretty much any industry, virtual tours also became the default way to look at a property. To make real estate buying and renting as simple and digital as possible, the camera technology of Giraffe360 uses a high-specification sensor, LIDAR laser, and robotics.
Their new Go Cam product builds on their existing technology and improves the operating speeds three times faster than that of their previous generation cameras.
“The new Giraffe Go Cam and funding will help guide the transition toward more immersive experiences of properties online, as the world takes on a more remote, online approach to properties. Ever since Covid-19, there has been tremendous growth in remote work, in the demand for virtual tours, and overall growth in a greater immersive reality straight from the computer screen. Giraffe360 seeks to facilitate a greater understanding of properties for end users, and to eliminate the technological gap that is required to do so,” Mikus Opelts, co-founder and CEO of Giraffe360, shares in a press release.
At the intersection of robotics, AI, proptech, and SaaS
Founded in 2016 in Riga, Latvia by two brothers – Mikus Opelts and Madars Opelts, Giraffe360 is currently headquartered in London. By using high-specification sensors and robotics technology, the startup eliminates the need for a professional real estate photographer and ensures the provision of professional quality photography, high-accuracy floor plans, and 3D virtual tours.
Right now, the hardware-as-a-service model for virtual tours of Giraffe360 is unique in the proptech visualization industry. The company points out that they have one competitor in 3D visualization – the US company Matterport, which acquired the Bulgarian 3D geospatial analytics startup Enview in January 2022.
To date, Giraffe360 has raised $22m in equity and $9M in venture debt. For only 6 years on the market, the startup has expanded its offering to 30 countries, focusing its efforts on the US and the UK as its main markets.
