inCitu secures $2m to democratise city planning using AR

inCitu, a New York City-based company that seeks to bring future physical developments to life via augmented reality (AR), has announced it has raised $1m, and will use the funds to accelerate growth and scale operations.

The funding support from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt, is in addition to a pre-seed round securing $1m from other investors and initial customer traction.

Urban development

inCitu reports its AR enables informative public-facing visualisations of proposed and upcoming development projects with customers across the US comprising cities, real estate developers, technology companies, and other stakeholders in the future of urban development.

inCitu allows anyone to see and explore how the built environment is changing around them, in real scale, in-situ. The company claims it turns massive piles of “messy, archaic data into beautiful, informative, accurate visualisations of future skylines and buildings”, and provides that data to technology companies as well.

“Cities worldwide must adapt fast and effectively, but the obsolete systems prevent equity in the design and decision-making process, leading to a lack of trust, collaboration and inclusivity among residents and industry professionals’’

With the aim of lowering the ‘friction’ for city dwellers to access city planning information, and its content, they can envision and explore how their neighbourhoods will change around them and engage more fully in city planning.

Accessible via mobile-AR, with no headsets or special devices required, it could encompass anything from individual buildings, affordable housing, mixed use developments, through parks and bridges and to complete neighbourhood re-zoning as well as regional infrastructure, inCitu reports.