Renovating your kitchen?
Check on a retailer’s website about how a farmhouse sink for sale would look with similar-style cabinets. Move around the room in a 360-degree panorama to take in the dining room table, lighting and other features.
All this is possible through Decora, a startup business that created an online platform for designers to make computer-generated 3D images for online shopping for retailers including Target; Bed, Bath & Beyond, Hayneedle, Jacuzzi and American Signature.
The company arrived from Brazil in 2015 and located in the technology business incubator at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
Decor’s computer-generated images, which look as real as a photograph, cost significantly less than photographs for online shopping websites.
By placing a product in a room with other store products, “you’re influencing the shopper. You want to buy online,” said Rodrigo Griesi, a partner in the business and chief financial officer.
Retailers are catching on. Decora’s revenues grew 10-fold last year, Gresi said.
“The challenge is scaling production. This is a good problem to have,” he said.
But through its proprietary technology platform that allows artists to work from anywhere, scaling may not be such a problem. The company uses hundreds of independent artists, mostly from Brazil and Argentina, who can log on to the platform, complete a task and submit it for the company’s quality review, and then the retailer’s consideration.
They create 3D computer-generated images of products being sold on websites such as Target.com, and then place them in an environment with complementary products from that retailer.
“We do 10,000 images a month for our clients,” Griesi said. The images can be changed out at any time and the scenes shown in daylight or nighttime lighting.
While setting up a photo of a kitchen with actual appliances and furniture would cost about $5,000, a computer-generated image created by Decora costs $100 per product, he said.
Mary Jane Franco, a math and computer science instructor at Barry University, said computer-generated imaging almost looks real. “But it takes time to do it, several hours to create,” she said. “But you need people who know what they’re doing.”
Franco said she doesn’t think computer-generated imaging will replace photography. “It’s comparable but different,” she said.
Retailers, some of which have set up expensive photo studios, are recognizing the cost savings of computer-generated images, Griesi said.
The company is self-funded and is growing slowly by reinvesting profits. “We did a minimal investment to prove there’s a market,” Griesi said.
Decora initially was aiming for a consumer market where homeowners could redesign their homes. But the company soon realized that retailers were more lucrative, and that the major retailers they wanted to reach were based in the U.S.
Through a Pompano Beach-based program that brings Brazilian businesses to the U.S., Decora was introduced to the technology incubator at the Research Park in Boca Raton and moved there in 2015.
Patricia Beller, director of U.S. operations for Duvekot Corp., a business accelerator also known as GoToUSA.market, said Decora was one of 50 companies selected by the Brazilian Small Business Administration to come to the U.S. She said Decora stands out for its “dedication, team work and invested presence in the community.”
Griesi, 46, said he welcomed the opportunity to move to Boca Raton where he could raise his young family as well as get help growing his business. His four partners in the business remain in Brazil.
Andrew Duffell, president and CEO of the Research Park at FAU, said he has helped Decora by connecting the company with retailers and by introducing Griesi to the local business community. The incubator also assisted Griesi in becoming a permanent U.S. resident.
Duffell, who emigrated from Scotland, said with changes in immigration policy under the Trump Administration, the incubator is looking at other ways it can ease the way for immigrants with promising businesses to relocate to the U.S. He noted that foreign businesses in the Research Park are from those generally friendly to the U.S., including Brazil, Spain, Norway and Ecuador.
But Duffell said the incubator overall is working to become “more welcoming to foreign technology companies” and help them acheive a “soft landing.” The assistance may include connecting them with an immigration lawyer, finding jobs for spouses and schools for their children.
Griesi said Decora expects to add new retail clients this year. It also is developing a new opportunity: in-store displays where customers can try out different store products in a computer-generated home scene.
“We’re bringing the online shopping experience to the store, and visa versa,” he said.
mpounds@sunsentinel.com or 561-243-6650, twitter: @marciabiz
