Backflip AI
Turn text, photos, or sketches into 3D-printable models in minutes with AI that thinks in 3D.
About
Backflip is an AI 3D design platform founded in 2022 by Markforged cofounders Greg Mark and David Benhaim. It raised a $30 million Series A led by NEA and Andreessen Horowitz, with angels including Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott and Transformer co-author Ashish Vaswani. Its models, trained on a dataset of around 10 million 3D part blueprints, generate high-resolution 3D models from text descriptions, photos, or sketches — compressing design work that takes days into minutes.
The company claims 60x more efficient training, 10x faster inference, and 100x the spatial resolution of existing methods via a novel neural representation, and its outputs target manufacturing workflows (metal, carbon fiber, plastic) with a SOLIDWORKS plug-in that generates editable feature history. Limitations: the headline efficiency numbers are vendor-reported; the scan-to-CAD product was on a waitlist as of recent coverage; and generated parts still need engineering review before production use.
What it can do
- Text/photo/sketch to 3D-printable model generation
- 3D scan to CAD conversion
- SOLIDWORKS plug-in with editable feature history
- Manufacturing-ready outputs for metal and composites
Setup
Join the waitlist or request access on the Backflip website; SOLIDWORKS plug-in for CAD users.
Prerequisites
An account; CAD software for editing generated geometry.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 69; Trending score 78/100 from researcher assessment.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.