About

Most 3D design (concept, product, industrial, artistic, etc) includes free-form surfaces. Yet free-form surface design is still notoriously hard and time consuming, and currently requires heavy, complex and expensive Computer Aided Design (CAD) software packages. It is estimated that more than half of the time spent by users of CAD software (which amounts to several billion dollars in cost annually) is directly related to free-form surface design. To answer this market need, we developed Phi, a CAD software product that is cloud-based, easy to use and learn, allows design of top quality manufacturable models and offers a huge speedup (at least an order of magnitude) of that design process. Phi renders this very difficult and time-consuming task easy, manageable and pleasant, without sacrificing precision and engineering accuracy. Phi allows everybody - including novices - to realise and produce their 3D design ideas, thus not only helping experienced designers but also expanding dramatically the current consumer market.

Solution & Product

Phi uses state-of-the-art and proprietary technologies, algorithms and mathematics (including “n-sided surface patches” which we have taken to a new level) to enable everyone to freely design and manipulate 3D shapes, with top quality, watertight and smooth surfaces, allowing users to focus on their design ideas. Phi offers easy and intuitive organic design of top quality surfaces, instantly capturing the design intent. It implements the “curve-based design” principle: The user simply draws natural free-form curves reflecting their design intent, and the software automatically fits nice, top quality surfaces that contain the curves. No expertise or training is needed because of the simple, menu-free, but powerful and intuitive GUI. At the same time Phi offers engineering quality, accuracy and control, bridging ease of use with precise engineering. Phi is cloud-based and runs on any browser, and also offers interoperability with other CAD systems (and 3D printers) by supporting several standard file formats. It has already been integrated within two major CAD applications.

Innovation & Scalability

- Proprietary cutting-edge technological infrastructure: Our curve-based design approach, based on our proprietary research and development of n-sided patch mathematics and algorithms over the past several years, gives us a clear competitive advantage allowing an effortless style of free-form design that is not found elsewhere. - Cloud-based: Very few of the CAD/3D design applications are completely cloud/browser-based (and none so for surface modeling). This is a clear advantage for reasons of platform/device independence, simplicity, accessibility, collaboration, ease of updates, etc. - Simple and intuitive user experience: We have placed a lot of importance in providing a simple and intuitive user interface, without huge menus, with clear, quick interactions (many of which may constitute patentable material). E.g. tools such as carving, split-patching, fairing of edges etc are completely revolutionary. - Interoperability: Phi is already integrated within Onshape, the largest professional CAD cloud platform, and allows "live updates" where design changes within Phi can be sent over to Onshape with a single button click. Phi supports file formats that allow exporting to other applications and 3D printers, for example. Countless more new features and capabilities are already in the pipeline, either being designed or already being developed.

Traction & achievements

Phi launched in 2021. We have had and are having very positive feedback and praise from our users, whose number has been growing. Most are from design firms, who have expressed interest in our software and its capabilities. Users have been providing us with a lot of feedback, resulting in major upgrades of the application with improvements and new functionalities (https://phi3d.com/updates). This feedback helps drive priorities and direction for exciting new features and functionalities in the pipeline. We have already explored the possibility of technology licensing agreements with other companies, which led to very successful technological integrations of our product to drive freeform organic surfaces within host applications for the first time. This resulted in a lot of enthusiasm and initiated discussion of potential strategic investments in our company, so our future plans include more partnerships, apart from a stand-alone version. Develop3D (D3D), the industry leading publication for CAD, manufacturing and 3D printing, recently included Phi in their illustrious D3D-30 list of top technologies for 2022. Phi is in great company among a group of exciting technologies selected entirely on merit by Develop3D experts, which will "give product development a major boost and change the way the industry uses technology to design, engineer and manufacture products".

Team & Why Us

20+ years of industry knowledge including long collaborations with leading companies in our field such as SolidWorks, Onshape, Spatial Corp and others. Very strong technical and R&D background in software development and mathematics (Phds and MScs in software engineering, computational geometry). Partners with long business development, marketing and sales experience at C-level in the CAD field. Our product Phi was developed entirely in-house based on original mathematical research.

Funding Needs

We have already raised $2M which have allowed us to complete product specification and development up to MMP, plus development of our company, branding, web site, content creation, and enter the market through an ongoing partnership with Onshape. We now intend to raise another round that will allow us to strengthen our product development and marketing team, refine and extend our go-to-market strategy and allow us to offer the highest possible level of support to our users. We have specific development milestones for new functionalities (e.g. implement a new version of our surfacing mathematics, freeform filleting, integration of a constraint manager that we’ve already developed, etc). Focus will also be heavily on market penetration and user support. We are thus aiming to raise another financing round (Series A) after a few months to move the company to the next stage.