# Circle Optics, Inc.

Bringing 360-degree imaging to aerospace with NASA and the Air Force. Join Us!

## Elevator pitch
Circle Optics technology upon inception was based on the premise that technology has the power to enhance the human experience for the better. We are dedicated to the pursuit of 360° immersive experiences giving people more access to the past, present and future along with igniting the human capacity to imagine and create. We work on 360° imaging that impacts safety and democratizing experience!!!!

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/circle.optics.inc
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:59004
- Last updated: 2026-06-22T05:03:07Z
- Generated at: 2026-06-22T15:34:59Z

## Quick facts
- We have been awarded $5M in contracts with NASA, Space Force, Air Force, NSF and more
- Circle Optics has 12 Patents awarded & pending on their method of aligning fields-of-view
- We came in top 10/4000 companies in US - Pepperdine's Most Fundable Company® 2022
- Our team has bench strength of over 200 patents in the imaging vertical from IMAX, Kodak, and Xerox
- Our technology provides increased autonomy for uncrewed terrestrial and airborne systems - $10B TAM
- Our systems will improve aircraft navigation & prevent collisions for safer operation -$200M Market*
- Our technology provides increased autonomy for uncrewed terrestrial and airborne systems - $10B TAM
- We are a B-Corp and value our ecosystem — including the planet, shareholders, investors, employees!

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:29867: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)
- wefunder:fundraise:70138: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
The Future of 360 Immersive Experiences is in Your Hands Circle Optics, Inc. is a B-Corp. This choice is a signal in how we value our ecosystem, including the planet, shareholders, investors, innovators and engineers across the globe. We are dedicated to the pursuit of experience that gives more people access to the past, present and future and ignites the human capacity to imagine and create. - Circle Optics has massive growth potential and is 100% focused on developing and scaling technology that will allow you to have the capability to share your visual experiences with your friends, family, community and the world.Do you remember the first time you used Google Street View?  What if you could share YOUR OWN live virtual experiences in real-time? That is what we are working on! We are raising up to $1,000,000 to make this a reality and we want YOU be part of it!Get in early on this  Circle Optics community offering and help us shape the future of immersive experiences. Positioning360° imaging is already part of everyday life. From accelerating the delivery of life saving resources, to ensuring aerospace safety, to enhancing surveillance capabilities for protection, to increasing immersive experiences participation, Circle Optics technology will work for you. Different from other cameras on the market which work by overlapping fields-of-view, creating perspective errors, Circle Optics works by aligning fields-of-view to produce a seamless 360° image instantly. No distortion. One click and done.SolutionCircle Optics’ method of aligning fields-of-view produces no distortion and requires no stitching, enabling your field-of-view to be accurately captured in real time. Our solution is protected by a dozen patents.Circle Optics Technology is Different Those requiring a wide field-of-view image have long been forced to choose between one of two flawed methods, a distortion-filled fisheye lens with resolution sacrifices or a parallax-laden multi-camera rig that requires a time-intensive and expensive post-production process. The concept of a real-time, high-fidelity camera rig was thought to be impossible due to the insurmountable problem of parallax distortion. This is fundamentally wrong! Other cameras rely on overlapping circular fields-of-view which contain parallax (perspective distortion) where they meet.Circle Optics uses polygonal (non-circular) lenses with polygonal fields-of-view that align along their edges without overlap or parallax distortion, and therefore produce a perfect video capable of being live-streamed without corrective software. This fundamental breakthrough in the way optical systems work provides benefits in any field currently relying on wide field-of-view imaging.ROBOTICS / DRONES $10BThe drone industry is hampered by an inability to meet regulations to fly beyond line of sight of a human operator. Circle Optics is miniaturizing its novel camera technology under contract with NASA and NSF to enable drones to meet FAA regulations. 15 million drones are expected to fly beyond line of sight by the end of the decade, and they will need this solution to meet regulatory requirements.Circle Optics' work in aerospace has been adapted to enhance autonomous systems, such as drones. From this, customer discovery has shown the significant benefits our technology provides for the increased autonomy of both terrestrial and aerial uncrewed systems. Circle Optics is miniaturizing its novel camera technology to provide emerging capabilities to both terrestrial and airborne uncrewed systems. With the ability to enhance a wide range of autonomous imaging capabilities for robots, Circle Optics will enable better self-localization and navigation allowing these systems to operate beyond line-of-sight in GPS-denied environments. Furthermore, this technology can be deployed to collect higher quality visual data for autonomous platforms. This same technology can be adapted for future use in self-driving vehicles for navigation and collision avoidance purposes.AEROSPACE / DEFENSE $200MPersistent ground surveillance solutions scan our skies for threats including missiles, aircraft and UAVs to secure United States’ borders, but solutions today have narrow fields-of-view that operators describe as “looking through a straw.” Circle Optics is working with the Space Force to eliminate the straw-like view, giving full hemispheric coverage of the sky with resolution never before possible with our distortion-free optics.Circle Optics' optimized camera technology will enhance situational awareness capabilities for small aircraft with its ability to produce a unified image of the surroundings instantly. These systems will improve aircraft navigation and prevent potential collisions for safer operation.IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES / MEDIA $122MCapturing content for the immersive entertainment industry costs on average $10k per finished minute of video for stitching. Circle Optics’ Hydra camera system eliminates this cost and hassle. In an instant, content is ready for the big screen and live events can be streamed in 8k resolution and with 12-bit color to dome theaters and VR headsets. Circle Optics' Hydra camera system will make capturing content for the entertainment industry more advanced, faster, and less expensive. Hydra is the only camera that can create content at the resolution needed for dome theaters--the next generation of cinema. Hydra's unique architecture offers the ability to capture captivating and real-time 360° video that will thrive in virtual reality and dome theaters. In an instant, content is ready for the big screen and live events can be streamed in 8k resolution with 12-bit color.!We want you to be part of the Circle Optics story!*This is a projection and can't be guaranteed.

## FAQ
1. **Has there been a decision on the investment perks ?**
   - Hi Adan, investors in the private portion of the round who invest before Nov 18th will receive a 10% discount on the terms of the round. As for perks, we are currently exploring different options for Circle swag which will be announced soon!
2. **is it possible to lower the minimum to invest to $100 /$200 ?**
   - Thank you, Samuel. Yes, thank you for the heads up. We are discussing this now and I will get back to you.
3. **Hi Circle Optics team, Form C status? Also, under Highlights it states "Circle Optics has 12 Patents awarded & pending on their method of aligning fields-of-view". I did a quick patentscope search and found pending PCT applications (nationalized in other countries), howeve...**
   - Curtis - thank you for such a great question. Circle Optics issued patents include US 10,341,559, US 10,659,688 , and US 11,363,194. Circle Optics publicly pending IP include US 20220252848, US 20220272261, US 20220357645, US 20220357646, WO 2021133843, WO 2021163071, WO 2021262768, WO 2022173515. The collective intelligence of our team has over 200 patents. We look forward to having you join this innovation journey with us! @jennifersertl at @circleoptics.
4. **I know you marked Nov 18 as a 10% discount to terms, it looks like this is still not officially live after Form C - will you still honor the discount at this time since you have not officially launched yet? Also, any addition info on perks? May increase my investment to be lar...**
   - Thank you, Matt. Our 10% early bird discount ended December 1st. By Friday we will announce all of our campaign perks. Just going through final review right now! I will email you once our perks are posted. Thrilled to have you on our Circle Optics commercialization journey! @JenniferSertl
5. **Also have you considered uses such as virtual experiences at theme parks like Disney and others? I would assume this would fall under entertainment noted on your main page.**
   - + 1 Absolutely. Democratizing experience is what Circle Optics is all about and we look forward to content being created with our camera system all over the world in virtual experiences. There are so many amazing experiences to capture at Disney! We have spoken to companies that project 360-video content into immersive dome theaters and simulators!

## Team
- Zak Niazi (Founder, Inventor & CEO)
- Ian Gauger (Chief Operations Officer)
- Andy Kurtz (Chief Research Officer)
- Allen Krisiloff (Chief Technology Officer )
- Jennifer Sertl (Director of Marketing)
- Peter Stubler (Director of Imaging Science)
- Phil McMillen (Senior Project Manager)
- John Bowron (Senior Optical Engineer)
- Robert Metzger (Senior Optical Systems Engineer)
- Bob Stanchus (Senior Mechanical Engineer)
- Carlos Terrero  (Senior Mechanical Systems Engineer)
- Cody Hatch (Mechanical Engineer )
- Thomas Bidwell (Mechanical Design Engineer at Circle Optics, inc)

## Q&A
- Q: Can you please share revenue numbers for 2022 and projections for 2023? Current partnerships and potential partnerships in flights? Worth creating an update with this information plus any more information you want to add. Thanks.
  - A: Varun, Our next company update will be posted soon and I will answer your question here and also in that post. Thank you for your questions.
- Q: Dear Circleoptics Team, this is a really impressive product. Kindly clarify to me the plan of using the funds in the coming future. It is not clear to me from the options mentioned in the introduction video. Additionally, please let me know if you had/have revenue. Thank you in advance for your time. Alex
  - A: Thank you for your question, Alexandros. 60% towards hiring two full-time engineers, 35% towards hiring a full-time sales / development employee, 5% towards WeFunder fees. A use case that was not discussed enough in our video is the following: We are building a drone application that helps not only detect and avoid (DAA) but also detect and navigation. We call it situational consciousness. Situational Consciousness When you have a camera system that is so good that the drone or robot can perform autonomously that it has a 3D - 360 environment. Modern autonomous systems have 360-degree situational awareness from multiple cameras pointed in different directions. The video output from these cameras is kept separate and analyzed individually. Recently, Tesla realized the need to combine separate feeds together into a cohesive spherical image of the world. But stitching imagery requires extensive compute power and is often inaccurate. Circle Optics has developed a novel lens technology where fields of view between cameras conjoin, creating a composite panorama errorlessly at the speed of light. (Same image of combined fields of view versus overlapped fields as shown on the Hydra page). Rather than combining video feeds after the fact, our feeds are designed to be joined from the start.The result is an ability to understand the entire environment, 360-degrees around the system, and understand how an action in one part of the environment will influence objects anywhere else in another remote part of the environment. It also makes it simpler to create 3D photorealistic models of the environment, by starting with the data in spherical form. This is why Tesla has made the move to convert their imagery to 360 before creating what they call the 4D vector space (link to Tesla definition of 4D vector space).
- Q: is it possible to lower the minimum to invest to $100 /$200 ?
  - A: Thank you, Samuel. Yes, thank you for the heads up. We are discussing this now and I will get back to you.
  - A: Samuel, Thank you for your interest in Circle Optics. Our minimum investment is set to $360.00 as we are innovating 360 imagery for robotics autonomy and aerospace safety. We would love to join our mission. @jennifersertl at @circleoptics.
- Q: What are you offering investors apart from $20M valuation. Any discount on future share sales, Loan interest?
  - A: Thank you for your investment, Dipak! This is a fixed price round with Series Seed preferred stock. You can look at the series seed documents in the stockholders agreement.
- Q: I know you marked Nov 18 as a 10% discount to terms, it looks like this is still not officially live after Form C - will you still honor the discount at this time since you have not officially launched yet? Also, any addition info on perks? May increase my investment to be larger than planned depending on perks. Feel free to direct message/email me if you do not want to disclose here.
  - A: Thank you, Matt. Our 10% early bird discount ended December 1st. By Friday we will announce all of our campaign perks. Just going through final review right now! I will email you once our perks are posted. Thrilled to have you on our Circle Optics commercialization journey! @JenniferSertl
- Q: Are there any pictures taken by the Hydra II or previous iterations of the the product? I do not see anything on your website or socials. I found a link to a podcast on your Twitter interviewing Ian Gauger with the Hydra in the background, but no images from the device itself. I see that you have won 3.7 million in contracts in the past. Any information you could provide that would provide more insight into Circle Optics past accomplishments?
  - A: We are now at 5$M in Federal contracts for our beyond the line of sight capability. We would love to have you join our Webinar Next Wednesday 5:00-5:30 EST https://lu.ma/q1ns87mw
  - A: Here are our current accomplishments. 1 We have been awarded $5M in contracts with NASA, Space Force, Air Force, NSF and more 2 Circle Optics has 12 Patents awarded & pending on their method of aligning fields-of-view 3 We came in top 10/4000 companies in US - Pepperdine's Most Fundable Company® 2022 4 Our team has bench strength of over 200 patents in the imaging vertical from IMAX, Kodak, and Xerox 5 Our technology provides increased autonomy for uncrewed terrestrial and airborne systems - $10B TAM 6 Our systems will improve aircraft navigation & prevent collisions for safer operation -$200M Market* 7 Our technology provides increased autonomy for uncrewed terrestrial and airborne systems - $10B TAM 8 We are a B-Corp and value our ecosystem — including the planet, shareholders, investors, employees!
- Q: Understanding that projections can't be guaranteed; nevertheless, can you share your current working projections for the next 3 or 5 years? Also, do you have a hoped for exit plan?
  - A: We would love to have you join our Webinar Next Wednesday 5:00-5:30 EST https://lu.ma/q1ns87mw Meanwhile, I will craft a response to you and Joshua Moore by Friday 5:00pm EST Thank you.
- Q: Is there a proper demo of your product? In terms of the immersive experience? Also, a comparative analysis of your camera image vs those created via the stitching process would be useful.
  - A: Thank you for asking Deepak. We are planning a zoom call soon to share more about our technology and there will certainly be a demo included in that. Stay tuned. My next update has a live video of our camera capturing the sunrise on the first day of Spring.
- Q: Is April 30, 2023 the end date for this present funding round?
  - A: Yes - thanks for asking we are working really hard to reach our $500,000 by the end of April and would love you to be a part of our community round!
- Q: Promissory note terms are 10% interest per quarter so if I invest 360 than my return will be 360+288 at the end of 24 months is this right ? Are this note convertible to equity in future ?
  - A: Thank you for your question nlrMaL PaTeL, This is an equity round. We have correct the language to make your investment clearer and we hope you have seen our posted perks. We would love to have you join our #360imaging and #UAV #CameraSystem #Innovation journey. We have so much to accomplish together. Happy New Year!
  - A: Thank you for your investment!
- Q: Hi Circle Optics team, Form C status? Also, under Highlights it states "Circle Optics has 12 Patents awarded & pending on their method of aligning fields-of-view". I did a quick patentscope search and found pending PCT applications (nationalized in other countries), however, I was unable to find an actual granted patent. Hopefully, this will be covered in the Form C.
  - A: Curtis - thank you for such a great question. Circle Optics issued patents include US 10,341,559, US 10,659,688 , and US 11,363,194. Circle Optics publicly pending IP include US 20220252848, US 20220272261, US 20220357645, US 20220357646, WO 2021133843, WO 2021163071, WO 2021262768, WO 2022173515. The collective intelligence of our team has over 200 patents. We look forward to having you join this innovation journey with us! @jennifersertl at @circleoptics.
- Q: Has there been a decision on the investment perks ?
  - A: Hi Adan, investors in the private portion of the round who invest before Nov 18th will receive a 10% discount on the terms of the round. As for perks, we are currently exploring different options for Circle swag which will be announced soon!
  - A: Invester Perks Have Been Posted!
- Q: any updates?
- Q: Will you have another funding round?
- Q: I missed the first round. Any plans for another round?
  - A: Hi Clinton, we currently have a bridge round open for accredited investors. If you meet that criteria, we would love to have you on board! We don’t have plans for another public round in the foreseeable future unfortunately