Matterport LLC is an American 3D spatial mapping company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a subsidiary of CoStar Group. The company was founded in 2011 as a private startup and merged with a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021 to begin public trading on the Nasdaq, before being acquired by CoStar in 2025. , its CEO is R.J. Pittman.
Matterport produces cameras used to capture images for 3D mapping of indoor spaces and the creation of digital twins. It also provides software as a service for real estate and property management, which became its largest source of revenue. In 2024, a Delaware court ordered the company to pay its former CEO Bill Brown about US$79 million in damages over restrictions on his shares following the 2021 merger. Since October 2025, Matterport tours have been absent from Zillow listings amid a dispute between Zillow and CoStar.
History
2011–2013: Founding as a startup Matterport was founded as a private startup in 2011 by Matthew Bell, David Gausebeck (known for the Gausebeck–Levchin test used in CAPTCHA technology) and Michael Beebe. The company was established after Bell and Gausebeck developed a prototype camera for capturing 3D images inside a room using the PrimeSense camera-on-a-chip, and later recruited Beebe for his expertise in 3D modeling and medical device design. In early 2012, the company joined the startup accelerator Y Combinator to incubate its project.
In April 2012, Matterport claimed that its prototype camera could scan 3D objects "20 times faster" than its competitors, and began collaborations with real estate and video game developers. By early 2013, the company had raised a total of US$5.6 million, including US$1.6 million in seed funding and a further US$4 million from 39 investors, in what was reported as a Series A round.
In July 2013, Matterport announced plans to release its first camera to the public. In November 2013, Bill Brown became the CEO of the company.
2014–2018: Early growth Matterport launched its first camera, the Pro 3D, in March 2014. In June 2014, Matterport competed against 14 other early-stage real estate startups in Realogy's FWD Innovation Summit, a real estate technology competition, and emerged as the winner. Subsequently, the company raised US$16 million in a Series B funding round, in part to bring its 3D mapping technology to mobile devices.
In June 2015, Matterport raised US$30 million in a Series C funding round with the goal of diversifying beyond its camera products and enhancing its software for stitching images together in virtual reality. The company planned to use the funds to develop capture on mobile devices and expand its developer platform across its web and mobile apps.
On December 3, 2018, Matterport appointed R.J. Pittman, previously the chief product officer at eBay, as its CEO. Bill Brown, the former CEO, remained on the company board as an advisor.
2019–2021: COVID-19 pandemic and SPAC merger In April 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Matterport laid off 90 employees, roughly one-third of its workforce.
On February 8, 2021, Matterport announced its intention to go public by merging with Gores Holdings VI, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a US$2.9 billion deal. The merger closed in July 2021, and Matterport began publicly trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker MTTR.
2022–2023: Post-merger On January 5, 2022, Matterport completed the acquisition of Enview, a company specializing in artificial intelligence for 3D spatial data, for a total of US$37 million. In July 2022, Matterport acquired VHT Studios, a real estate marketing agency, for an undisclosed amount.
In July 2023, Matterport announced a restructuring that resulted in the layoff of 170 employees (about 30% of its workforce) as a cost-cutting measure. The company raised its subscription prices in the second half of 2023.
2024–present: Acquisition by CoStar On April 22, 2024, it was announced that Matterport would be acquired by the CoStar Group in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately US$1.6 billion. CoStar, which had already been one of Matterport's largest clients, planned to use Matterport's 3D tours on its Homes.com residential portal.
In 2024, Matterport reported revenue of US$169.7 million, up 8% from the previous year, and 1.2 million subscribers. Its net loss of US$256.6 million for the year included about US$95 million in litigation costs.
The acquisition was completed on February 28, 2025, about a month ahead of the companies' expected schedule. In May 2025, Matterport announced a further subscription price increase, effective immediately for new customers and from each existing customer's next renewal on or after June 24, 2025.
On October 20, 2025, Zillow removed Matterport 3D tours from listings on Zillow and StreetEasy. Zillow said CoStar had declined to renew a Matterport API agreement and had changed its terms to restrict use of the tours on competing sites. CoStar disputed this, saying its licensing terms had not changed, that customers could share their tours anywhere including Zillow, and that the removal was Zillow's own decision. The dispute formed part of a wider rivalry between CoStar's Homes.com and Zillow. , the companies were still disagreeing over whether Zillow could display the tours.
Products
Cameras Matterport's first camera, the Pro 3D, launched in March 2014 and was aimed at contractors, real estate companies and architects. It was sold alongside a subscription-based cloud service and a web-based content player.
In May 2017, Matterport launched its second camera, the Pro2, an upgraded version of its first camera with improved resolution and geotagging capabilities. The company launched a cheaper version, the Pro2 Lite, in February 2018.
In August 2022, Matterport launched a third camera, the Pro3, an upgrade to the Pro2 featuring a LiDAR sensor.
Real estate and digital twin services In 2016, Matterport developed a tool to generate floor plans from its camera images.
In February 2019, Matterport introduced a subscription-based platform called Cloud 3.0, supported by its image-processing artificial intelligence software, Cortex. The platform aimed to lower the cost of entry into 3D mapping by making its software compatible with 360-degree cameras from other companies such as Insta360 and Ricoh (specifically the Ricoh Theta).
Matterport has also run the Matterport Service Partner (MSP) program, through which camera owners could build businesses selling 3D scans to clients.
Collaborations In 2014, Matterport collaborated with Google on Project Tango, an augmented reality platform, and with Redfin to create a 3D walkthrough feature for real estate listings.
In June 2021, Matterport announced a collaboration with Facebook AI Research to release the Habitat-Matterport 3D Dataset (HM3D), a collection of 1,000 digital twins generated from real-world environments, intended for academic research such as embodied artificial intelligence.
Matterport also partnered with Amazon Web Services to provide 3D models and data analytics to AWS IoT TwinMaker, a digital twin service that became generally available in April 2022.
Legal issues
Brown v. Matterport In July 2021, former CEO Bill Brown sued Matterport in the Delaware Court of Chancery over transfer restrictions, adopted for the SPAC merger, that prevented him from trading his shares in the new public company. On January 10, 2022, the court ruled that the restrictions did not apply to Brown's shares, and the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed that ruling in 2022.
In a second phase of the case, the Court of Chancery ruled on May 28, 2024, that the restrictions had caused Brown to lose about US$79 million, and awarded him that amount in damages. Brown had sought about US$141 million. Matterport appealed in July 2024, days after its shareholders approved the sale to CoStar. The company recorded US$95 million in litigation expense for 2024. On April 22, 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the damages amount but found that the post-judgment interest award was excessive, and sent that issue back to the Court of Chancery.
Following the Brown judgment, several other former stockholders of the pre-merger company filed similar complaints in the Court of Chancery in 2024.
Service partner class action In June 2020, a Matterport Service Partner from Illinois filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Matterport had misrepresented the MSP program and its promised business leads, causing would-be small business owners to collectively lose millions of dollars.
Other litigation In October 2018, Matterport sued rival 3D tour company GeoCV in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleging infringement of at least six of its patents. The companies settled in 2020 on undisclosed financial terms, with a permanent injunction against GeoCV for the life of the patents; GeoCV had begun winding down operations in October 2019.
In September 2023, Matterport was sued by investors who alleged that it had allowed self-dealing by insiders.
References