Wednesday, March 5, 2008

EveryScape views expansion with $7M second round

EveryScape Inc. reports closing a $7 million Series B round of financing as it goes head-to-head with Google Inc.'s Street View feature of Google Maps.

EveryScape, which is based in Waltham, developed a 3-D virtual street-level tour of places such as Miami, New York and Boston using digital photographs. EveryScape differentiates itself from Google by not only enabling users to virtually walk down city streets, but to also explore the interiors of local buildings, landmarks and businesses.

The funding increases total investment in the company to $11 million, including a $4 million first round. EveryScape, launched last year, plans to use the funding to grow its sales force, launch the product in additional cities and develop new community features, company officials said. The company has about 30 employees.

The financing was completed with investors Dace Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Fisher New England, Draper Atlantic, and LaunchPad Venture Group.

Its software is a photo-realistic, 3-D rendering engine originally developed for video games by Byong Mok Oh, a well-known MIT doctoral graduate focused on image-based modeling, and applied to gaming and research through Mok3 Inc., a Boston-based company Oh founded in 2002 with Newbury Networks Inc. founder Yonald Chery.

Mok3 was named an MIT $50K semifinalist in 2003 and eventually landed $2 million in venture capital and designed photorealistic 3-D representations of Boston's Big Dig and the Royal Sonesta Hotel.

In 2005, Chery left Mok3 and new CEO Jim Schoonmaker came in, bringing a Web 2.0 background to Oh's technology. The pair renamed the company EveryScape and applied Oh's technology to mapping. The shift also allows users to incorporate their own content to EveryScape's 3-D virtual world mashup.