Answer extracted from the Digital Construction Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
Why did the founder leave a senior role at Autodesk to start a new company?
While leading ReCap at Autodesk, Pouliquen identified a fundamental problem: the entire workflow was stuck on the desktop with no way to share massive point cloud data via the cloud. When he connected with PhDs from a French lab who had developed compression technology to solve this exact problem, Autodesk wasn't interested in acquiring it. Rather than shelve the solution, he and the three co-founders decided to build the platform independently, and Pouliquen left Autodesk around 2017 to invest his own capital and launch Cintoo.
Desktop constraints and a missing piece
At Autodesk, Pouliquen had overseen the ReCap team in San Francisco, managing large-scale point cloud workflows across Revit, AutoCAD, and C3D. The platform worked—but it was constrained. Every major operation required desktop-level computing power, and sharing massive datasets remained cumbersome. Point clouds, which consist of millions of individual 3D coordinates, were difficult to move, collaborate on, or access from anywhere.
The practical challenge was acute: how do you enable teams on a construction site or across an office to view, share, and annotate high-resolution point cloud data without requiring specialized hardware or lengthy downloads? As Pouliquen explains in the episode, Autodesk's ecosystem was built for desktop workflows, not cloud-first collaboration.
The technology Autodesk declined
The turning point came when Pouliquen met PhDs from a French research lab who had cracked a critical piece of the puzzle: compression technology that could turn raw point clouds into 3D mesh surfaces, drastically reducing file size while preserving fidelity. This wasn't just a compression trick—it was a fundamental data transformation. By converting unstructured point clouds (which you can see through) into continuous 3D surfaces (which behave like real-world geometry), the data became both more interpretable and far smaller.
Pouliquen brought the technology to Autodesk's leadership, but the company declined to acquire it or integrate it into ReCap. The reasons were likely strategic—Autodesk was focused on its existing desktop-centric products and enterprise licensing model. Rather than accept that decision, Pouliquen and his co-founders chose to pursue the opportunity independently.
"Everything takes longer than expected, and usually it's three times longer than what you think."
Dominique Pouliquen — Co-founder and CEO of Cintoo. Pouliquen joined Autodesk through the acquisition of his first venture, RealViz, a photogrammetry spin-off from a French research lab. He spent years building reality capture products at Autodesk before identifying the cloud-collaboration gap in point cloud workflows. His decision to leave and launch Cintoo reflects a founder's conviction to pursue a market opportunity that larger organizations were not yet ready to address.
The founding happened around 2017, and Pouliquen invested his own money as a business angel to get Cintoo off the ground. His willingness to take that personal financial risk underscored his confidence in the core technology and the market need he'd observed firsthand at Autodesk.
What makes this transition instructive is that it wasn't born from frustration alone—it was grounded in a specific, unsolved problem and access to proven technology. Pouliquen had the industry knowledge, the technical validation, and the co-founder partnership to execute. The decision to leave a senior position at a Fortune 500 company was calculated rather than impulsive.
Today, Cintoo operates at a very different scale, with over 110,000 active users relying on its platform to stream high-resolution 3D meshes in a web browser—a capability that was not feasible when Pouliquen was at Autodesk. The company has validated the market demand that Autodesk's leadership had not yet recognized.
See also
What is the core principle behind compressing massive point cloud data into formats suitable for cloud sharing?
The technology converts huge point clouds into 3D meshes or 3D surfaces, which solves the problem that point clouds are like 3D dots in space where you see through them. By transforming point clouds into continuous surfaces, the data becomes more interpretable and highly compressible—all while preserving the resolution of the original scan.
What advice does Devon Middleditch give to early-career technical professionals aspiring to leadership?
If you are a technical person, it is easy to drift back to your safe space. Devon suggests taking professional development modules on understanding self and investing in leadership competencies to make the transition from individual contributor roles to management positions.
What innovative technologies did Devon Middleditch implement on the Doha Expressway Program around 2010?
On the Doha Expressway Program, Devon implemented drones to verify if digging was occurring on the ground for progress payments, iPads with early augmented reality applications, and real-time digital reporting systems to streamline project management and oversight.
Key takeaways
- Pouliquen identified a critical gap: Autodesk's point cloud workflows were desktop-centric with no cloud-sharing capability.
- He discovered compression and 3D mesh technology from French PhDs that could solve the problem—but Autodesk declined to acquire it.
- Rather than accept the rejection, Pouliquen left Autodesk around 2017 and invested his own capital to co-found Cintoo with the technology inventors.
- The bet paid off: Cintoo now serves over 110,000 active users who stream high-resolution 3D data in web browsers—a capability Autodesk had not yet prioritized.