$8M for ProtoPie to Accelerate the Connected Future

We are pleased to announce that we raised $8 million in ProtoPie's Series A extension, allowing us to ramp up our operations and scale up our journey empowering companies to prototype the connected future entirely without code. Although this was covered by Forbes before, I still wanted to write a piece for our own ProtoPie blog.

We’re so amazed by the generosity of our partners—existing and new. Existing investors like HB Investment, DevSisters Ventures and Introps Investment contributed. New investors included Mirae Asset Venture Investment, and most notably the big hitter Korean investment firm, LB Investment. Thank you for your trust.

This funding is a big deal for us. It seems it was only yesterday that we were a small startup in Seoul, founded by former Samsung software engineer Scotty Kim and myself.

We had and still have a singular founding vision: revolutionize prototyping for digital products. We’re proud to say that ProtoPie is fulfilling that vision every day—radically changing the way companies explore & validate ideas and put these interaction ideas into implementation.

A wide variety of the world’s most innovative global companies already use ProtoPie as their main high-fidelity prototyping tool for all their digital experiences. Think of companies like Microsoft and Samsung all the way to BMW and Roblox.

Their reason is simple. ProtoPie is the only rapid high-fidelity prototyping tool that enables them to explore, experiment and validate ideas easily, quickly, and efficiently. Best of all, ProtoPie enables them to create realistic prototypes replete with rich designs and complex interactions.

And this demand for high-fidelity prototyping tools covering the entire spectrum of digital products is only getting bigger.

The inevitable interconnected UX

Our world is increasingly interconnected. People don’t just interact with a single device these days—they interact with multiple interconnected devices.

Indeed, the number of connected devices per U.S. household has more than doubled in the space of a few years—growing from 11 in 2019 to 25 in 2021.

The global wearables market is a big part of that trend. Indeed, wearables are projected to reach 776.23 million units by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.48% from 2021 to 2026.

“Look at connected cars and wearables,” said Ki-Ho Park, CEO of LB Investment. “Digital, connected products play an increasingly prominent role in our everyday lives. We believe in the potential and vision that ProtoPie has in building that future.”

The future is connected

As consumer demand for connected devices grows, the need for rapid high-fidelity prototyping tools grows too. Companies making these connected digital products must test and validate increasingly complex ideas.

Until earlier this year, no company was addressing this new prototyping landscape. ProtoPie changed that. Our new COO Mark Lee said, “Now, ProtoPie provides a solution for companies prototyping digital experiences for wearables.”

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. During the pandemic, we added smartwatch prototyping capabilities. Additionally, we released an expansion product called ProtoPie Connect, which enables companies to prototype fully connected environments consisting of multiple prototypes, screens, devices, hardware, and data.

Now UX designers, engineers, and researchers can prototype for the entire spectrum of connected, digital products—from mobile apps, to wearables, all the way to IoT and connected car experiences. The best part of it? This puts design teams at the epicenter of product development.

What’s next for ProtoPie?

This $8 million in funding will allow us to ramp up our product development—from integrations and usability testing to no-code publishing features.

Needless to say, we’re incredibly excited—we can’t wait to roll out these new developments over the coming year and see what the ProtoPie communities think.

The new funding will also turbocharge our global reach. Currently, 85% of ProtoPie’s growing revenue comes from outside of South Korea—35% of that comes from North America alone. Now, we can expand our growth and sales teams in North America—from our offices in Vancouver, British Colombia, to those in Austin, Texas.

Stay tuned. The future of ProtoPie is golden.