Update: Founder Ren Ng just called me and said Private Equity Hub’s information is incorrect. He pointed out that Refocus raised an undisclosed first round from Greylock in 2007. That’s probably what the filing referred to.
A new startup called Refocus Imaging is developing technology to help anyone who has ever had a potentially amazing photo ruined because it was out-of-focus. The company just raised $250,000 in a first round of funding, according to Private Equity Hub, citing a regulatory filing.
There are, of course, dozens of photo products and sites available. But even with the popular editing tool Photoshop, there’s only so much a photographer can do to fix things after the fact. If you want your photo to be in focus, you’d better get things right when you’re taking the picture.
With Mountain View, Calif.-based Refocus, however, that’s no longer true, because you’re not just taking a normal photo. Instead, Refocus fits the image sensor with a special lens and captures the entire “light field” entering a camera. So after you’ve taken the photo, you can just adjust a slider to change the photo’s focus to any depth-of-field.
CNET’s Underexposed blog took a closer look at Refocus’ technology in February, and seemed pretty impressed, although some issues still needed to be resolved. You can see sample Refocus photos in the article, and on the Refocus site. Apparently, the technology comes from founder Ren Ng’s research at Stanford.
The new funding comes from Greylock Partners, according to PEHub. I emailed Refocus for confirmation earlier today, but haven’t heard back.
