Less than two months after its second investment in Ohio, legendary Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia Capital has financed another startup that formerly called the Queen City home.
Physna Inc., which describes itself as a cross between Google and Github for 3D images, closed a $20 million Series B round, the company announced Thursday. Sequioa led and was joined by founding investor Drive Capital LLC.
Physna still maintains an office in Cincinnati at 30 W. Third St. Downtown, although it moved its headquarters to Columbus from Cincinnati last year. The company has aggressive hiring plans for 2021 spurred by the round, Physna CEO Paul Powers said.
The capital, he said, will go toward rapid development of the fast-selling enterprise software and a lighter, free online version called Thangs, which grew to 100,000 registered and even more unregistered users since launching last year.
“I’m very picky about what investors we work with,” Powers said in an interview. “What mattered to me is they have experience building companies that have massive potential and have a long term view of building that out and patience to see it though. Sequoia got the big picture faster than anybody else.”
A separate Sequoia fund was among several co-investors in the December round that valued Columbus-based Olive AI Inc. at $1.5 billion. It was not the lead, but that marked the firm's first dollars flowing to the state. Both Olive and Physna are in the portfolio of Drive, which was founded by former Sequoia partners. Starting in 2011 Sequoia led some rounds and joined others for since-acquired Cincinnati biotech Assurex Health, according to CrunchBase data.
Sequoia Partner Shaun Maguire joins Physna's board. Officials said the latest round also brings the company’s total funding to $29 million.
“Paul and the Physna team have developed a breakthrough platform,” Maguire said in a news release.
The first software that searches objects in three dimensions, hence "physical DNA," Physna can help designers find replacement parts because many industrial components are identical shapes under different manufacturers' names. Customers have reported saving 40% on supplies.
Physna has a repository of shapes and parts that designers can copy to plug into a design, similar to the Github software repository of sections of code. The enterprise version has more robust ways to search and collaborate.
Supply chain failures in the coronavirus pandemic drove demand, Powers said. December's revenue was greater than the year to date and 2019 combined.
An attorney with degrees in astronomy and astrophysics, Powers founded the company five years ago. CTO Dennis DeMeyere was recruited mid-pandemic from the actual Google.
Physna’s multiple uses will make it a much larger company as technology grows increasingly immersive, such as virtual reality, Powers said. Other companies will link to it to power their software, like a car's windshield able to assess road hazards.
"I think Physna is going to bridge that gap between physical and digital," he said. "Thangs is going to become the central place where you search for not only models, but any object or product. 3D is such a powerful nucleus to have, it even makes text and image searching more accurate."
Cincy Inno reporter Liz Engel contributed.
