Startup Spotlight #170: Kaedim
Kaedim gives everyone the power to create great 3D content.
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I got the chance to speak with Konstantina Psoma, co-founder and CEO of Kaedim, about what she’s working on at her startup, and any advice she has for emerging entrepreneurs.
From Konstantina:
Hi! My name is Konstantina. Originally from Athens, Greece moved to the UK to do Computer Science with Innovation at the University of Bristol. There I found myself around a lot of fellow CS students who were all playing video games in their free time. During the 2nd and 3rd year of my studies I got the chance to apply a creative twist in my degree. I started doing a lot of 3D modelling, Character and Set Design and 3D Animation. Through the process of modelling a Bristol cathedral into 3D software I realised how repetitive and time consuming the process is as well as the lack of smart tools to help accelerate creators.
When I looked back at video games, having the insight on how every single object I see is made, it seemed crazy to me that every screenshot had hundreds of 3D objects and for the whole production, millions.
So this is how Kaedim was born, we are using AI to make 3D asset production frictionless, fast, and accessible.
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Startup Spotlight: Kaedim
Problem: A single 3D asset costs $3000 to make, adding up to $30m for a AAA game.
Market: There are 800K professional video-game artists worldwide X $12,000/year, a $9.6B TAM. The Business model is SaaS with per seat per month pricing going up to $1,000.
Solution: We can create a 3D asset in seconds with a cost of <$10, enabling faster iteration and greater creativity.
Team: Roman, CTO, and Konstantina, CEO, founded Kaedim in February 2020 after having worked on various projects together for 4 years. The team now is 6 people including 2 ML engineers, John-Luke and Jake, and our Full Stack Developer, Andrei.
Recent Success:
Psoma: We have been really successful at getting traction with early customers. We have two of the greatest game development companies in the UK on board since our earliest days, namely Rebellion and Aardman Animations. Apart from them, we also have 10 other companies of the space including Quell (YC 21) signed up to our pilots and getting onboarded to start using the product. We've also been very good at speed. In less than 7 months we grew the team from 2 to 6 people, released our MVP, grew our early customers from 4 to 12, released our BETA, onboarded the first 3 key customers to our pilots to start using the product.
Recent Struggle:
Psoma: With both co-founders being of young age, building our network from scratch while also building up our company has been one of our main challenges. When we founded Kaedim in 2020, Konstantina was 21 and Roman 22 and fresh out of uni with a great idea and a lot of passion. However, we needed to fundraise and we needed to find customers while all our network was made up of university graduates. The fact that the world was also going through some dark times with COVID didn't help either. We had very few chances to network and get introduced to key people in the fundraising and gaming communities. The bright side? We made it work and we learned a lot.
Founder Advice:
Psoma: Although I am no expert and I am still finding my own steps when it comes to fundraising I want to share some of my learnings that might be useful for others. When fundraising, make sure to treat investors as your equals. They have to prove themselves to you and how they can be valuable to your business as much as you have to prove that your business is going to make them rich. Secondly, when a fund passes on the opportunity, there is no point in listening to the why. In most cases, it's just a lie that leaves the door open for them to come in at a later point. Finally, time spent fundraising is time not spent on building a great business. If you do your best to build a strong and impressive business, funding will follow.
Two Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Psoma: Here are two founders you should check out next!
Ilham Said, Founder of E2E: E2E is a community-based platform that lets university students connect with each other, find new job opportunities and establish university communities streamlining student engagement.
Gal Yoffi, Founder of Playstream.GG: Playstream.GG is a free streaming tool that focuses on viewer engagement and offers a solution for all content creators.
Who should I profile next? Leave your suggestion in the comments:
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