Backflip, backed by a16z and NEA, raises $30M Series A to turn text into AI-generated designs

But what if creating a usable 3D design was as easy as turning to ChatGPT? This is the mission Reverse conversionA startup founded by 3D printing veterans who raised $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, and many other big names in tech.

Designing physical objects often requires hours or days of dedicated work using computer-aided design software. Backflip CEO Greg Mark and CTO David Benhaim, founders of Markforged 3D printing company, want to make that happen in minutes thanks to Backflip’s new ground-breaking models.

“AI language models capture how we think, vision models, and Backflip creates foundational models that reflect how we build,” Benhaim said.

Backflip says its models are built on a large database of about 10 million 3D parts, generated in part by artificial intelligence, and took two years to build. Mark told TechCrunch that with this growth, Backflip plans to launch its own app and democratize the design process for everyone from makers to regular people. AI is also not limited to text: It can also create designs based on sketches, photos or other materials.

“Now anyone can do it. You can literally send text messages, sketch, draw, or take a photo with your iPhone and then print it. Your thoughts are in the world. It’s kind of crazy,” he said.

One logical concern with radically democratizing design is the kind of product some people end up with. The killer of the United Healthcare CEO He used a 3D printed weaponfor example. Mark told TechCrunch that Backflip takes security seriously and currently has a two-level content safety checker to filter out the creation of potentially malicious designs.

Backflip’s round was co-led by NEA and a16z, with angel investors including Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, Android founder Rich Miner, and Ashish Vaswani, co-author of Attention Is All You Need, the paper that helped start the LLM revolution. .

Backflip has been private since its founding in December 2022, raising an undisclosed seed round. This large Series A is part of a broader trend of VC enthusiasm to improve (or even replace) labor-intensive processes with AI, everywhere from coding to law. VCs are in a offers a war on Anysphere thanks to its AI-powered code editorCursor, TechCrunch reported.

For NEA partner Lila Tretikov, Backflip is also part of a thesis on funding startups focused on building and creating 3D worlds and products. The trend was investigated by TechCrunch. Tretikov led NEA’s investment in World Labs, founded by artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li, who wanted to create interactive 3D scenes. from a single photograph.

“AI, along with many other techniques, would be extraordinary in helping engineers and designers build things we can’t even imagine now,” he told TechCrunch.

Markforged, a previous company founded by Backflip’s executives, sells 3D printing systems, including physical 3D printers. This went public then in a $2.1 billion SPAC in July 2021 raise His net worth is $137 million, according to his website. Both Mark and Benhaim left the SPAC after a year. (Markforged’s shares fell about 97% after it listed as a multiple SPAC.)

Mark said that while he’s “incredibly proud” of Markforged, building hardware is “slower” than focusing purely on design software, as Backflip does. “The real challenge with 3D printing and just moving humanity into the future in general is the design side,” said Mark. “I want to see the future, don’t you? I want to fly among the stars. And we do not deviate from traditional design packages.”