Lagoa

Lagoa was a cloud-based 3D rendering, visualization and collaboration platform. Users uploaded models in a range of standard file formats, assigned materials, and viewed interactive photoreal renders entirely inside a standard web browser, without offline, hardware-dependent software. The platform targeted 3D artists, designers, engineers, architects and advertisers, and included an API library so developers could build their own applications on top of the rendering engine, extending its use into e-commerce and 3D printing experiences.

The company was founded in 2012 in Montreal, Quebec, and also operated offices in Bonn, Germany and Boston, Massachusetts. Its cloud product launched publicly in April 2013 and was described at the time as an industry first for the computer-aided design sector, since 3D rendering had previously been considered too data-intensive for cloud delivery. Lagoa said it had patent-pending technology for optimizing rendering speeds on the platform, and supported importing models from other design software.

Autodesk acquired Lagoa in 2014. In 2017 Lagoa told users that with the acquisition its team was fully dedicated to Autodesk product development and that the standalone service would be retired: rendering was switched off on 22 December 2017 and the lagoa.com site was taken down on 2 March 2018, with users directed to Autodesk's Fusion 360 for comparable browser-based rendering.

Founding story

Founder Thiago Costa moved from Brazil to Montreal and worked within the local gaming community, where the shift of gaming toward distributed cloud computing shaped his design for a new 3D engine. The cloud product followed his earlier desktop physics engine, Lagoa MultiPhysics, and responded to two limitations he identified: users' reluctance to pay for installed software, and the isolation imposed by CAD tools built without collaboration in mind. He co-founded the company with Arno Zinke, a PhD in physically based rendering technologies based in Bonn, Germany, whose early research covered accurate digital rendering of hair.

Business model

Lagoa sold access to a hosted 3D rendering and collaboration service, complemented by an open API library that let developers embed interactive photoreal 3D experiences in their own applications, including e-commerce and 3D printing workflows.

Subscription tiers based on rendering hours, cloud storage and number of private projects, ranging from a free plan (5 rendering hours, 1 GB of storage and unlimited viewing of public projects) to a "powerhouse" tier at $123 per month with 250 GB of storage, 375 rendering hours and 25 private projects; higher usage was priced on an ad-hoc basis.

Traction

Investors cited growth in Lagoa's user community as evidence of demand for cloud 3D design, and press coverage noted early users concentrated in the luxury goods industry. Reported headcount was in the 11-50 range, and total disclosed funding across two rounds was $6.9 million.

Latest developments

Lagoa stopped taking on new enterprise customers following the Autodesk acquisition, shut off rendering on 22 December 2017 and removed lagoa.com on 2 March 2018, redirecting users to Autodesk Fusion 360 while the team focused on Autodesk product development.