Urbanbase, a Seoul-based company developing a 3D spatial data platform for interior planning and design, announced today that it has raised $ 11.1 million (13 billion won) in a Series B + round as it is scaled Has.
This financing round was led by Hanwha Hotel & Resort, a subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Corporation.
Urbanbase was founded in 2013 by Chief Executive Officer and former architect Jinu Ha and has now raised a total of US $ 20 million (approximately 23 billion won).
Existing investors did not join this round. The company raised $ 1.8 million in Series A funding in 2017, plus an additional $ 1.2 million, and the first Series B round in April 2020 from donors including Shinsegae Information & Communication, based in South Korea, Woomi Construction, SL Investment, KDB Capital, Shinhan Capital, Enlight Ventures, CKD Venture Capital and Breeze Investment, said Ha.
The latest funds will be used to improve its B2B SaaS and invested in research and development for advanced Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and 3D tools, which are considered to be the core technologies of Metaverse that Urbanbase is looking to join Ha . Based on Strategy Analytics report, it is projected that the global Metaverse market size will grow by $ 280 billion by 2025 from $ 30.7 billion in 2021.
Companies that focus on opportunities in the so-called “metaverse” have grown for you as part of a next generation approach to building viable business models in areas such as virtual and augmented reality as well as all of the hardware, software and new technologies that are being built . Big tech companies, from Facebook, Intel to Microsoft, are aiming to move to the area. Apple also ventured into virtual reality and worked on developing a high-end VR headset.
Urbanbase is also planning to update its home interior software platform Urbanbase Studio, which has functions to convert 2D interior images into 3D displays using Urbanbase’s patented algorithm, visualize interior products in augmented reality, and visualize spatial images based on the Analyze AI technology.
Urbanbase claims 50,000 monthly active users with 70,000 registered B2C users. The company has around 50 B2B customers.
“Most of our B2B customers are large corporations in South Korea and Japan, such as LG Electronics, Mitsubishi Real Estate Service from Japan, Nitori Holdings, Dentsu Group and SoftBank, but we want our B2B customer base to be small, medium-sized and more B2C users after completing Series B + financing, ”said Ha.
Urbanbase is seeking an acquisition target in the prop-tech and construction technology sectors, Ha told TechCrunch. Urbanbase is currently focused on developing interior design tools for apartment buildings as roughly 70-80 percent of all households in South Korea and Japan live in apartments, Ha said, adding that it will diversify its portfolio by acquiring a startup that offers different types of housing covers.
It currently operates the platform in Korean and Japanese, but will add an English-language service before entering Singapore in late 2021, Ha said.