Thursday, January 5, 2012

GrabCAD sketches out a $4M bump in funding

By Rodney Brown

Open source CAD software startup GrabCAD Inc. has taken in $4.2 million in new funding, boosting its initial tranche of $1.1 million in June according to an SEC filing this morning and the GrabCAD website.

There are 13 backers in the round, the first to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. While none of the backers are named, the filing lists the address for GrabCAD as care of Cambridge venture capital firm Matrix Partners, which invested in GrabCAD’s $1.1 million tranche in June 2011. David Skok of Matrix has joined the GrabCAD board, and is the only non-executive listed as a related person in the new filing. Other investors in the June round were Atlas Venture and NextView Ventures.

In a blog post, GrabCAD President Hardi Meybaum said that “all inside investors” participated in the new $4.2 million tranche, and the reason “we didn’t include additional investors is that we are extremely lucky to already have people involved that are giving their valuable time and know-how to help us any way they can.” 

In addition, Meybaum identifies other investors, including former SolidWorks CEO John McEleney and former PTC executive Jon Stevenson, as well as new investor Andy Payne, one of the co-founders of Open Market. In the blog post about the initial tranche in June, Meybaum also named as backers angel investors Alex Ott and Angus Davis.

Meybaum, who was in the official company headquarters in Estonia when reached by phone, said that expanding operations in the Boston area is the primary goal to which the new funding will be applied.

“The main purpose is mostly investing in hiring more people from Boston,” he said. “We have a quite small team there, but it is time to grow the Boston team more significantly. That means software engineers, product managers and marketing people.”

According to Meybaum, GrabCAD has nine employees total, with three in Boston. GrabCAD had been residing in the TechStars incubator in Cambridge as one of the 12 TechStars Boston 2011 companies, but is no longer there. Meybaum said. “We are currently in Kendall Square but not with TechStars, and at this point we are not looking for a new place,” he said.

GrabCAD provides a CAD services marketplace, a cross-platform CAD library and an engineering community for mechanical engineers. The company was named a Mass High Tech “Startup Watch: Five you should follow” company in June 2011.