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Adam<\/a>, one of the most viral startups in Y Combinator\u2019s Winter 2025 batch, has raised a $4.1 million seed round to power its next steps, TechCrunch learned exclusively.<\/p>\n After generating over 10 million social media impressions with the launch of its text-to-3D model app, the AI startup had its pick of investors. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were getting term sheets over email without any meetings,\u201d said CEO Zach Dive (on the right of the picture).<\/p>\n Adam quickly went with TQ Ventures<\/a> as its lead investor because they agreed on the future of computer-aided design (CAD). Just as importantly, they also agreed on Adam\u2019s roadmap \u2014 going consumer first, and then to enterprise.<\/p>\n This required the most alignment: Adam caught people\u2019s attention with a mainstream product, not an enterprise one. But Dive said this choice is paying off, and paving the way for Adam\u2019s upcoming copilot for professional-grade CAD workflows.<\/p>\n The startup had always planned to go B2B, but felt that the technology wasn\u2019t enterprise-ready yet \u2014 which is why it initially focused on makers, not engineers. But AI models improved faster than they expected, and Adam now plans to launch its copilot by the end of the year, Dive said.<\/p>\n Its initial tool lets creators without CAD skills create 3D models from text prompts, but early feedback showed that text wasn\u2019t always the best way to interact with 3D, Dive said. \u201cSo for our copilot, we blended in different interaction paradigms; for example, users selecting different parts of the 3D object and conversing with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This will give the startup an element of differentiation compared to other text-to-CAD products<\/a>, although there is already competition in the \u2018AI copilot for CAD\u2019 segment as well. MecAgent<\/a>, for instance, is already available, but Adam could capitalize on its viral launch.<\/p>\n Early momentum particularly helped with hiring, which is still an ongoing effort, Dive said. He and his cofounder, Adam CPO Aaron Li, both graduated from UC Berkeley\u2019s Master of Design program, but the startup also needs more AI and engineering talent to \u201cgive models the right context for reasoning in space.\u201d<\/p>\n Capital and endorsements can both help with this endeavor, and Adam now has its fair share of both, sometimes combined. Besides TQ and participating funds 468 Capital, Pioneer, Script Capital, and Transpose Platform, Adam is also backed by angel investors, including Tim Glaser (Posthog), Trevor Blackwell (YC), and Theo Browne (T3 Chat).<\/p>\n In addition, Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch called Adam \u201cthe v0 of CAD\u201d (in a nod to Vercel\u2019s V0<\/a>, an AI-powered platform for web creation). <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simpler, faster, and reaches a broader audience,\u201d he wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n Adam is already on its way to reaching a broad audience, with \u201ctens of thousands of individual users and a growing base of paying customers\u201d for its standard and pro plans, which respectively start at $5.99 and $17.99 per month. The startup hasn\u2019t begun to monetize its soon-to-launch enterprise offering, but has \u201ctesters validating different features,\u201d Dive said.<\/p>\n This testing phase is clearly necessary: there\u2019s quite a jump from helping amateurs print 3D Pikachus to supporting engineers in their daily work. Dive said the startup doesn\u2019t intend to replace them, but instead streamlines time-consuming tasks such as applying the same change to multiple CAD files.<\/p>\n With an initial focus on mechanical engineering, the startup plans to help these pro users generate feature\u2011rich parametric designs in popular CAD programs, beginning with Onshape<\/a>, which is known for bringing CAD to the cloud and reshaping workflows. \u201cThe same thing will be true with AI,\u201d Dive predicted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n