inCitu, an NYC-based company using augmented reality (AR) to bring future physical developments to life, announced USD $1 million in funding from Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic project of Eric and Wendy Schmidt, and another USD $1 million from other illustrious investors.
Customers across the US include cities, real estate developers, tech firms, and other interested parties in the future of urban development. The company provides informative public-facing AR visualizations of proposed and upcoming real estate projects.
“City planning is too slow, obscure, and expensive for the pace of development required in cities today,” stated Dana Chermesh-Reshef, Founder & CEO of inCitu.
Anyone can use inCitu to view and investigate how the built environment changes in real time and the places around them. The company’s platform transforms data into accurate, insightful visualizations of future skylines and structures. It makes those visualizations available to technology companies and anyone interested in the data.
All of inCitu’s content, including affordable housing, individual buildings, mixed-use developments, parks, and bridges, as well as complete neighborhood rezoning and regional infrastructure, is accessible via mobile AR without the use of headsets or other specialized equipment to reduce the barriers that city dwellers face in accessing city planning information.
The founder and CEO of inCitu was one of six impact entrepreneurs chosen to participate in Schmidt Futures’ Entrepreneur-In-Residence program in 2020. After the company completed the two-year program this fall, Schmidt Futures added the $1M funding to inCitu’s pre-seed funding. Two significant partnerships between inCitu, Snap Inc., and Esri were signed in 2022, enhancing the company’s data and impact on the platforms.
One of the company’s augmented reality (AR) representations of an actual, under-review Midtown Manhattan development proposal recently hit more than 100,000 residents, making it, in the company’s estimation, the most visible planning proposal in the annals of city planning.
“With the support of global leaders in technology and real estate, inCitu is poised to help democratize and revolutionize how citizens visualize the future of their neighborhoods and cities,” added Chermesh-Reshef.
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