Startup Spotlight: theCADcube

Each Friday the RookieOven Startup Spotlight highlights a Scottish tech startup. The aim is to, as the name suggests, put the spotlight on Scotland’s best startups. It’a an opportunity to share information about an exciting tech start from Scotland. Giving a brief overview of the company, what they do, where they are and who they are. This week the spotlight falls on Edinburgh based theCADcube.

theCADcube provides architecture and design professionals with a free library of 3D CAD models, which they can download and drop straight into their design projects. Offering a free alternative to existing CAD libraries which generally provide generic, user-generated content which you have to pay to download.

All of the CAD models come directly from manufacturers of furniture, lighting and building products, so theCADcube also provide a really powerful and measurable marketing channel for manufacturers, allowing them to reach out directly to an influential audience.

theCADcube was founded by Darren Lester who studied Architecture Technology at Edinburgh Napier University. The idea was initially born out of frustration at the lack of tools available to speed up the CAD modeling process whilst Darren was at University. Research into the idea revealed that there was a demand for CAD models of real products as opposed to generic content and that most manufacturers had either outdated or non-existent processes for getting their products in front of the very influential architecture and design professionals.

theCADcube is based on the fifth floor of Evolution House as one of the University of Edinburgh’s Design Informatics resident entrepreneurs. theCADcube has been funded by the Technology Strategy Board, this covered the initial startup costs to get the idea off the ground then recieved further funding from the PSYBT which helped with early cash flow.

In the coming months theCADcube will release a plug-in for AutoCAD, this will allow users to drag and drop content from theCADcube straight into their designs without ever having to leave the software programme. Additionally theCADcube will start to host BIM (Building Information Modeling) content as well as CAD.

For a young startup theCADcube has came a long way in a short space of time. Definitely one to keep an eye on.