Five years after its founding and after patiently refining its 3D modeling technology in hundreds of factories, the Montreal firm Prevu3D is ready to attack the market.
It will be aided by a $10 million round of funding, to be announced on Tuesday, led by Cycle Capital and including existing investors Brightspark Ventures and Desjardins Capital.
“We invested for four years to build a good technological foundation that gives us a good head start,” explains Nicolas Morency, mechanical engineer, CEO and founder of Prevu3D. Now it’s about going to market with an accessible solution. »
Prevu3D’s technology makes it possible to digitize in 3D the spaces and devices of a factory floor and to make adjustments to them on the screen, to combine new elements or to move them, as one would do in a video game. by creating a “digital twin”. It is also a video game engine, Unity, which serves as the software foundation. Each element is assigned technical information, and everything is consolidated into a cloud service. The result is so easy to handle that virtually every trade in a factory can make it their own.
“Instead of having three or four people using the data, hundreds will be able to collaborate,” rejoices the CEO. As it’s fun, we don’t have to send everyone back to school. »
Adapt and automate
The 3D modeling is provided as an executable file which requires few computing resources; it can therefore be installed and used on common computers without having to resort to specialized software.
Prevu3D had a good year in 2022 with the acquisition of around fifty customers, mainly in the agri-food and energy sectors, who pay a license according to the number and size of the installations, which ensures regular income. The team gathered at the head office in the Saint-Henri district of Montreal now has about thirty employees. A sign of the company’s ambitions, “this year, the sales and marketing team was put in place, five people to start canvassing,” explains Mr. Morency.
Do factories change configuration so often that a service like Prevu3D is needed to manage them? “Yes, 100%,” he replies. They have to adapt their facilities and maintain them properly. We must renew the equipment, be more ergonomic and introduce more automation. »
This is the second round of major funding for Prevu3D, after that of June 2020 which raised 2.5 million. Like the most recent, Mr. Morency says he is happy to have completed these operations despite the context. “We raised at the start of the pandemic, we were lucky […] Now, in the current economic context, I’m quite happy to pass this bar. »