Giraffe360 invests £3.5m in ‘camera-as-a-subscription’ service for agents 

Here at Giraffe360, the PropTech startup, we have raised a £3.5 million funding round to further accelerate our product development and expand our service in the UK.

Leading the investment round are LAUNCHub Ventures and Hoxton Ventures, joined by European VC firm, HCVC (Hardware Club). 

Giraffe360 offers a fixed-fee subscription service for its unique robotic camera, which enables estate agents to skip the need for a professional photographer, and generate high-resolution photography, accurate floor plans, and world-leading virtual tours, with the ability to publish property listings in 24 hours.

The Giraffe360 is a proprietary camera solution, using a high-specification lens and LIDAR laser technology, specially designed for estate agents. Due to it’s simple user interface, this brings unprecedented convenience to creating the content needed for your listing.

For an agent to create a floor plan, one only needs to press the 3D scan button. The camera, coupled with a professional in-house editing team, will create a ready to go floor plan with no further input from the agent.

A key benefit here is the fact that the margin of error for the floor plan created by Giraffe360 is only 2%.During the 3D scan process that creates the floor plan, the camera simultaneously creates an incredible 270-megapixel virtual tour. This also is put together with no further interaction from the agent.

A key new feature  of the virtual tours is the remote viewing functionality. This year property viewings in particular have migrated from physical to virtual as stronger measures to social distancing have been introduced.

For many businesses across the UK, Giraffe360 has been the solution for this transition. Giraffe360’s service allows  the applicant to access and view the property virtually, alongside the negotiator.

When it comes to professional-looking photography, the camera should be placed in the corner of the room or the doorway (for the largest angle) and an agent only needs to press the photo button on screen. The camera captures three separate angles of HDR imagery, and when combined together results in a wide-angle photo of almost 10mm.

Normally to create an image this wide it would require an ‘extreme’ wide-angle lens, creating a slightly circular image. However, with the use of the Giraffe360 wide-angle technique, combining the angles together will leave the photo perfectly proportioned.

All pictures, as well as the virtual tours, are professionally edited by a professional in-house editing team; masking all windows, removing camera reflections, and also blurring out any personal and/or sensitive information.

The Giraffe360 camera is a cutting-edge high-end device, and is provided for free to the agents, who are paying a fixed subscription fee for the all included services. Due to this estate agent friendly model, with no upfront investment in hardware, agencies can save up to 90% of their traditional photography cost.

Here at Giraffe360, we are planning on using the newly-raised investment to keep improving the technology, release new features requested by the estate agents in the UK, as well as make the service available for more customers, as thus far the service has been available in a limited capacity.

*Frederic Benisty is Head Of Commercial Development at Giraffe360