Attending a video conference requires little more than a smartphone camera nowadays, but the large firms at the forefront of the remote meeting movement have higher standards. Huddly hopes to seize the opportunity with the help of $10 million in new funding announced today.

The Norwegian startup sells a compact camera specifically geared towards geographically dispersed teams. Dubbed the Huddly GO, the device packs a 16-megapixel lens in a rectangular case that can be fixed to a laptop over the webcam or placed on a surface using an adjustable mount. It captures video with a 150-degree field of view, which allows for a great deal of flexibility as far as the viewing experience is concerned.

Huddly Chief Executive Thomas Holst told TechCrunch that a “pan-tilt-zoom” function provides the ability to enlarge a certain part of the screen and zoom in on people and objects of interest. This feature can come handy in scenarios where, say, an engineer is presenting a new product prototype that needs to be viewed up close for full appreciation of the details.

Holst said his team plans to expand upon Huddly GO’s capabilities with a new computer vision tool that will give managers insight into how their teams use the camera. The executive specified that the technology will automatically capture information like the number of participants in a call, the topics on the agenda and even lighting conditions. Huddly hopes that logging such details will let organizations find ways of improving collaboration among remote workers.

Today’s funding will help Huddly speed up its development roadmap. The startup didn’t name the investors who provided the capital, but divulged that it has raised a total of $20 million to date plus a $3 million state research grant. On the sales front, Huddly claimed that its camera has been adopted by Microsoft Corp., browser maker Opera Software ASA and several other top tech firms operating in Norway.

Image: Huddly