Adam, some of the viral startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch, has raised a $4.1 million seed spherical to energy its subsequent steps, TechCrunch realized solely.
After producing over 10 million social media impressions with the launch of its text-to-3D mannequin app, the AI startup had its decide of buyers.
“We have been getting time period sheets over e-mail with none conferences,” stated CEO Zach Dive (on the best within the image above).
Adam rapidly went with TQ Ventures as its lead investor as a result of they agreed on the way forward for computer-aided design (CAD). Simply as importantly, additionally they agreed on Adam’s roadmap — going shopper first, after which to enterprise.
This required probably the most alignment: Adam caught individuals’s consideration with a mainstream product, not an enterprise one. However Dive stated this selection is paying off and paving the best way for Adam’s upcoming copilot for professional-grade CAD workflows.
The startup had at all times deliberate to go B2B however felt that the expertise wasn’t enterprise-ready but — which is why it initially targeted on makers, not engineers. However AI fashions improved sooner than they anticipated, and Adam now plans to launch its copilot by the tip of the yr, Dive stated.
Its preliminary instrument lets creators with out CAD abilities create 3D fashions from textual content prompts, however early suggestions confirmed that textual content wasn’t at all times one of the best ways to work together with 3D, Dive stated. “So for our copilot, we blended in numerous interplay paradigms; for instance, customers choosing totally different components of the 3D object and conversing with it.”
This may give the startup a component of differentiation in comparison with different text-to-CAD merchandise, though there’s already competitors within the ‘AI copilot for CAD’ phase as nicely. MecAgent, for example, is already accessible, however Adam might capitalize on its viral launch.
Early momentum notably helped with hiring, which remains to be an ongoing effort, Dive stated. He and his cofounder, Adam CPO Aaron Li, each graduated from UC Berkeley’s Grasp of Design program, however the startup additionally wants extra AI and engineering expertise to “give fashions the best context for reasoning in house.”
Capital and endorsements can each assist with this endeavor, and Adam now has its justifiable share of each, generally mixed. Apart from TQ and taking part funds 468 Capital, Pioneer, Script Capital, and Transpose Platform, Adam can also be backed by angel buyers, together with Tim Glaser (Posthog), Trevor Blackwell (YC), and Theo Browne (T3 Chat).
As well as, Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch known as Adam “the v0 of CAD” (in a nod to Vercel’s V0, an AI-powered platform for net creation).
“It’s easier, sooner, and reaches a broader viewers,” he wrote on X.
Adam is already on its technique to reaching a broad viewers, with “tens of 1000’s of particular person customers and a rising base of paying clients” for its normal and professional plans, which respectively begin at $5.99 and $17.99 per thirty days. The startup hasn’t begun to monetize its soon-to-launch enterprise providing, however has “testers validating totally different options,” Dive stated.
This testing section is clearly vital: there’s fairly a soar from serving to amateurs print 3D Pikachus to supporting engineers of their each day work. Dive stated the startup doesn’t intend to exchange them, however as a substitute streamlines time-consuming duties equivalent to making use of the identical change to a number of CAD information.
With an preliminary deal with mechanical engineering, the startup plans to assist these professional customers generate characteristic‑wealthy parametric designs in fashionable CAD applications, starting with Onshape, which is understood for bringing CAD to the cloud and reshaping workflows. “The identical factor will probably be true with AI,” Dive predicted.
