3D No-Code Design Solution, Spline, Secures $15M in Seed Funding

Spline, the innovative no-code 3D design solution maker, has announced a successful $15 million funding round. The seed funding was led by Gradient Ventures, with noteworthy participants such as NXTP, First Round Capital, Chapter One, Webflow CEO – Vlad Magdalin, Backend Capital, Y Combinator, and Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel.

CEO and Co-founder Alejandro Leon has revealed that the new funding, which takes Spline's total raised amount to $16 million, will be funneled primarily into research and development, while also aiding in the expansion of the company's current team comprised of 20 members.

Reflecting on the early days of Spline's journey in 2020, Leon recollects the initial hesitance and uncertainty of investors towards 3D. However, he acknowledges that the landscape has dramatically transformed, with 3D now standing as a standard content format, much like images, audio, and video.

Leon, who had been fascinated with 3D since his childhood, launched Spline out of his desire to simplify the 3D designing process and make it more accessible. Being accepted into Y Combinator's 2021 batch, Spline made its beta version debut in March.

From creating 3D objects from scratch or pre-made items to editing materials with interactivity features, Spline offers users an all-encompassing platform for 3D design. Collaborative features enable users to work collectively to refine and provide feedback on assets, in addition to creating real-time physics simulations and interactions between these assets.

Designs can be easily exported as image files, GIFs, and beyond, or even integrated into web pages using minimal lines of code. Leon believes that the capabilities of web technologies and AI have revolutionized the quality prospects of 3D, which is why Spline has incorporated AI texture tools and AI style transfer into its offering.

Following the footsteps of major corporations like Meta and OpenAI, the platform aims to leverage language models for content generation. Like these established platforms and emerging powerhouses such as the no-code tool AppMaster, Spline foresees AI dramatically shaping the future direction of 3D creation, making it easier and more accessible to a wider audience of designers.

Contending with established tools like Blender and Cinema 4D, Spline aims to effectively reduce the friction and complexity associated with 3D creation processes, considering it as an ongoing challenge. Since inception, it has already attracted more than 1 million creators to its platform.