'Paper' Developers Get $15 Million in Funding For Future Apps and Hardware - MacRumors
Skip to Content

'Paper' Developers Get $15 Million in Funding For Future Apps and Hardware

by

paperlogo.pngFiftyThree, the company that created popular iPad sketching app Paper, today announced that it received $15 million in funding for future projects, which will focus on both collaboration and physical creation.

We are especially focused on two areas:

TRUE COLLABORATION—Social media has changed the way we communicate, but real collaboration has been left behind. Still nothing has surpassed the simple act of sitting down in a room with a group of motivated people. We believe a breakthrough around collaboration will revolutionize the creative process. How we work together. How we discover new collaborators to work with.

PHYSICAL CREATION—Tools have helped us evolve and we've evolved to use tools as a way to extend our ability to express something. And that doesn't end at the touch screen. Moving beyond touch and into the physical world of accessories opens up creating with greater dexterity and expressiveness.

FiftyThree founder Georg Petschnigg expanded on those two concepts in an interview with The Verge, explaining that the team hopes to create "a suite of mobile tools for creativity." Currently, the company's only app is Paper, which is an intuitive sketching app that offers a quick way to capture ideas on a distraction-free canvas.

The app, which was designed by engineers who formerly worked on Microsoft's now-cancelled dual-screen tablet project Courier, won a 2012 Apple Design Award and was later named Apple's iPad App of the Year.

Top Rated Comments

172 months ago
What is really interesting is how stupid were Ballmer and Gate by killing the project because they didn't see any potential...

Now it's one of the best app on iOS.

They are the opposite of the definition of visionary.

Their original project was completely different from the app. You can look it up on the YouTube and see that this double screen thing is garbage and no one would buy it. It was made JUST for sketching. You wouldn't buy it.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Rumored Colors

What's Coming in September: New iPhones, Apple Watches and More

Thursday August 13, 2026 4:20 pm PDT by
Apple will introduce at least five new devices at its iPhone-centric event next month, and it's also possible we'll get devices waiting on Siri AI like the Apple TV. iPhone 18 Pro The iPhone 18 Pro is going to look like the iPhone 17 Pro, but with a smaller Dynamic Island. It's getting some internal updates, including a new Wide camera with a variable aperture for more control over lighting ...
Everything New Your iPhone Can Do on iOS 27 Feature 1

30 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 27

Friday August 14, 2026 6:24 am PDT by
Apple will release iOS 27 in September, and despite the company's focus this year on refining its flagship operating system and nixing bugs, there are still many additional features on the way, not least of which is Apple's new context-aware Siri, re-tooled for the generative AI era. This year's major iPhone software update isn't all about AI, though, as the following feature list...
Apple Skipping iPhone 18 This Year

Apple Skipping iPhone 18 Launch This Year

Wednesday August 12, 2026 6:59 am PDT by
Apple supplier Pegatron today indirectly confirmed that the standard iPhone 18 model will not be released until next year, according to a new report. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Pegatron held an earnings call for the second quarter of 2026 today. On the call, Taiwan's Economic Daily News said Pegatron indicated that one of its customers will be changing its...