Abstract Announces $16M Series B Funding

Scale Venture Partners led the round with participation from existing investors Amplify Partners and Cowboy Ventures. As part of this financing, ScaleVP partner Stacey Bishop will be joining the company board. This funding round will be used to accelerate the product roadmap, continue to hire across all teams, and invest in design education and training.

Abstract is changing the way designers work together and collaborate with the rest of the company. Design has become one of the most critical functions shaping the customer experience in any modern business. And yet, design teams lacked a workflow system to collaborate on new ideas without fear of conflicted copies or having work overwritten. Collaborating meant duplicating files, often moving them from one folder to another. Revisions hide away in email or as attachments in messaging systems. And tracking design feedback and decisions was like conducting an orchestra when everyone has different sheet music.

"Effective team coordination, collaboration, and feedback are all crucial components of any business function. Yet, design, a function that touches so many parts of a business had no efficient system in place," said Stacey Bishop, Partner, Scale Venture Partners. "With design becoming more prevalent in the enterprise, there is a growing need for Abstract. We believe that Abstract can become the system of record that powers the workflow for all visual communication in the future."

Abstract started solving these challenges by focusing on design teams using Sketch, a popular screen design tool. The team is currently working on scaling the service to support more design file formats in the future. Since the beta launch in July 2017, over 2,500 design teams have adopted Abstract, including teams from Shopify, Github, Everlane, Instacart, BlueSpark, and more.

"Our files are versioned, our communication is better, and we've become 30% more efficient in turnaround times," says Mark Dawson of Bluespark, one of Abstract's many early adopters. "Abstract is quite literally redefining our design process."

"We are so thankful for the thousands of design teams who have already adopted Abstract and have provided amazing feedback along the way" said Josh Brewer CEO and co-founder of Abstract. "With this additional investment, we will be able to expand our product roadmap and continue to build out a flexible design workflow platform, where designers and collaborators from across the company can see and participate in the design process."

As Abstract looks to continue to serve more design teams, ScaleVP's experience in helping SaaS companies accelerate sales and marketing was attractive to help the company manage rapid growth. Design teams ready to modernize their workflow can give Abstract a try for free today!

About Abstract

Abstract is a design workflow system, built by designers for designers. Abstract provides one place for design teams to version, manage and collaborate on design files. The company was founded in 2016 by Josh Brewer and Kevin Smith. Josh was previously a Principal Designer at Twitter and "one of fifty designers shaping the future of design" according to Fast Company. Kevin was previously Head of Product and Design at Tact. Abstract customers include modern design teams at Shopify, Github, Everlane, Metalab, and Headspace. The company is based in San Francisco and is backed by Scale Venture Partners, Amplify Partners, Cowboy Ventures, First Round Capital, and others. To learn more visit www.goabstract.com

About Scale Venture Partners

Scale Venture Partners (@scalevp) invests in software companies that are transforming the future of work. Investments include: Box (BOX), Chef, Cloudhealth, DataStax, Demandbase, DocuSign (DOCU), ExactTarget (ET), HubSpot (HUBS), JFrog, Lever, and WalkMe. ScaleVP partners with entrepreneurs to support accelerated growth from the first customer to market leadership. Founded in 2000, ScaleVP has over $1 billion under management and is located in Silicon Valley. For more information visit www.scalevp.com.