please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . december 2012 learn how and when to remove this template message turbosquid inc. type private industry 3d models founded new orleans louisiana 2000 2000 founder matt wisdom andy wisdom david avgikos tom avgikos headquarters new orleans louisiana area served worldwide key people matt wisdom ceo chris phillips coo mark kurt cto eric arvidson cfo products stock 3d models services custom 3d models number of employees 100 september 2013 website www.turbosquid.com turbosquid is a digital media company that sells stock 3d models used in 3d graphics to a variety of industries including computer games architecture and interactive training . the company headquartered in new orleans louisiana in the united states is most known for brokering the sale of 3d models in return for a percentage of the sales . as of 2014 turbosquid had over 370 000 3d models in its library making it the largest library of 3d models for sale in the world . turbosquid also has over 120 000 other products available such as texture maps . contents 1 history 2 company name 3 checkmate 3d modeling standards 4 falling pixel 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit turbosquid was founded by matt wisdom and andy wisdom who were partners in chimera digital imaging a company that produced 3d animation for television commercials from 1994 to 2000 . during that time the pair began researching ways to sell or license unused 3d models . 1 they officially began software development of a marketplace in 1999 under the brand ipublish . at the same time digimation a new orleans company founded by david avgikos was working on a similar project called 3dbay . in april 2000 the two groups officially merged to form turbosquid . backed by angel funding the company announced the new marketplace at the siggraph conference in august 2000 . autodesk subsequently distributed 3ds max 4 with a turbosquid add on and turbosquid received its first venture investment in april 2001 . disagreement over many aspects of the company led to the departure of tom avgikos and initial ceo david avgikos and a complete separation from digimation in 2002 . andy wisdom served as the ceo for the next several years . in 2005 matt wisdom and andy wisdom initiated and were instrumental in drafting and passing the louisiana digital media act louisiana senate bill 341 which seeks to stimulate growth in the technology sector by providing tax credits to digital media companies . 2 3 also in 2005 levee failures in new orleans following hurricane katrina caused catastrophic flooding and prompted the evacuation of nearly 500 000 city residents including all of turbosquid s new orleans staff . because the company s business is run on servers outside new orleans and employees were able to continue work over the internet the site s business was able to maintain record growth through the whole period of displacement . rather than relocate the company decided to return to new orleans which it did in november 2005 . 4 in 2006 matt wisdom became the company ceo . andy wisdom moved on to chairman of turbosquid s board and began working in the finance industry . in august 2009 turbosquid implemented the squidguild a loyalty program that pays higher royalties to artists who post their 3d models exclusively at turbosquid . 5 as of 2011 the registered membership has crossed the 2.3 million mark and the number of contributing artists has passed 20 000 . 6 company name edit regarding the company s name matt wisdom said having a good brand is a really important part of having a business . the idea of a squid was something we could brand around ; a squid conjures the idea of having tentacles everywhere . and turbo well everything that was big in the 80s was turbo . not surprisingly the domain name turbosquid.com was available . when i asked five different people about the name three of them liked it a lot one of them hated it but came around and one hated it but remembered it . that s the sign of a good brand . and it was more passionate than media exchange.com . 7 checkmate 3d modeling standards edit in august 2011 turbosquid introduced the checkmate certification program where models are checked against a unified 3d modeling standard developed by turbosquid and passing models are marked as certified in their catalog . 8 by december 2011 more than 2500 models at turbosquid had been checkmate certified with over 100 artists participating . 9 10 falling pixel edit falling pixel is a marketplace for the purchase and sale of 3d digital content in europe . content is supplied by digital artists who receive royalties per sale . the company which was founded in 2005 is headquartered in manchester united kingdom . in 2010 the company became the united kingdom s official distributor of evermotion 3d models and supplies over 15 000 digital products supplied by over 500 digital artists . the company received a silver award when from toptenreviews 11 in march 2011 turbosquid acquired falling pixel and exchange 3d a marketplace predominantly serving the russian 3d artist community . both sites have remained as they are but are operated under the management of turbosquid . jonathan lloyd former managing director of falling pixel was brought on as a member of the turbosquid executive team . 12 see also edit sketchup 3d warehouse references edit turbosquid named new orleans citybusiness innovator of the year pdf . retrieved 23 october 2011 . louisiana digital media act . . louisiana offers unique deal to help create video industry . cnn s ac360 video 3d role in building up america a 3d imaging company becomes a worldwide leader in industry despite difficult odds feb. 3 2010 . turbosquid squidguild . turbosquid celebrates 11th anniversary . 10 12 business news from louisiana s creative corridor july 12 2010 how i did it matt wisdom . archived from the original on june 22 2011 . introducing checkmate certification . checkmate statistics . turbosquid why we need quality control for models . toptenreviews.com . retrieved 2010 07 12 . http www.cgchannel.com 2011 04 turbosquid to merge with falling pixel exchange3d external links edit official website falling pixel retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title turbosquid & oldid 743576716 categories 3d graphics artcompanies based in new orleanshidden categories articles needing additional references from december 2012all articles needing additional referencesvague or ambiguous time from april 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 07 37 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view