3D scanner concept crowdfunded

A CHESTER company has turned to crowdfunding to finance the production of its 3D scanner.

CADScan has secured £61,000 of pledges on the Kickstarter funding website which allows fundraisers to pitch ideas in return for cash.

The company’s founders, Dr Alastair Buchanan and design engineer Tony Rhoades, are aiming for £80,000 which will release further investment from angel backers.

Dr Buchanan said: “Our scanner fills a clear gap in the market, with CADSCan 3D you simply put your object on the scanner’s turntable and the CADScan 3D does the rest. There’s no training, no calibration, no alignment or post-processing required.”

The Kickstarter campaign launched on 12 February and secured 50% of the company’s target funding within six days. Backers are incentivised by a range of rewards including limited edition versions of the scanner.

“Our current focus is on getting production units ready to ship to our backers on Kickstarter – they’ll be the first to receive scanners,” said Dr Buchanan. “There’s a lot of scope to develop our technology further; it can be scaled and optimised and we will be developing higher performance versions in the future.”

The CADScan 3D project can be found on Kickstarter here. It is expected to be available for £650.