Paracosm (acq by Occipital)

Paracosm was founded in January 2013 in Gainesville, Florida by Amir Rubin, Ian Taylor, and several engineers from the University of Florida, with a mission to create large-scale 3D maps of the real world. The company developed handheld LiDAR scanning technology that fuses data from an RGB sensor, a LiDAR unit (specifically the Velodyne VLP-16), and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to produce accurate, fully colorized point clouds as a user walks through a space. This simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approach allowed professionals to capture complex 3D environments without the need for GPS or external control points.

Paracosm's flagship product, the PX-80, was the world's first commercially available, fully colorized handheld LiDAR mapping system. It shipped in late 2017 and was used in over 15 countries across a wide range of professional applications, including MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) capture, 2D floor-plan generation, underground mine mapping, construction progress monitoring, and forestry surveys. Customers ranged from construction firms in the US to mining operations in Bulgaria and forestry projects in Japan.

In October 2017, Occipital Inc.—a spatial computing and 3D-sensing company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado and San Francisco—acquired Paracosm for an undisclosed amount. The Paracosm team and all intellectual property transferred to Occipital, while Paracosm continued to operate from its Gainesville, Florida base. The acquisition enabled Occipital to expand its 3D sensing portfolio from smartphone-based scanning (via the Structure Sensor) to sophisticated LiDAR-based systems for professional and enterprise use cases. Post-acquisition, the PX-80 continued to be marketed under the Occipital brand, and the combined technology contributed to Occipital's broader spatial computing platform.