AI vibe-coding tools like Replit and Lovable let anyone, regardless of their software development experience, quickly turn their ideas into full-fledged applications and websites.
Toronto-based Blueprint has set out to do the same for a much more challenging vertical: hardware. After initially developing its own autonomous indoor delivery robots, the AI startup has pivoted to helping others convert their text-based prompts into buildable designs for physical devices, as it looks to become “a Lovable for hardware.”
Blueprint aims to empower anyone to “take any [hardware] idea and bring it to reality,” no matter their technical prowess.
As Blueprint co-founder and CEO David Feldt told BetaKit in an exclusive interview, traditional hardware design can be “quite slow and tedious and scattered,” and rely heavily on human expertise. Since April, Feldt and his co-founders, COO Sajeel Purewal and CTO Pranav Seelam, have been working to empower anyone to “take any [hardware] idea and bring it to reality,” no matter their technical prowess.
To date, Blueprint’s clients have used the company’s “language-to-hardware” software to produce more than 200,000 plans for everything from augmented reality glasses to desktop companions, drones, go-karts, grappling-hook guns, MP3 players, RC cars, robotic arms, solar watering systems, wireless chargers, and more.
Blueprint customers describe the gadgets they want to make in simple language, and the company’s AI platform generates design and project plans covering everything from wiring to mechanics, suggested off-the-shelf parts and where to buy them, and a detailed rundown of how to put all of these pieces together.
Say a user wants to build a small, portable MP3 player (one of the devices listed in Blueprint’s community library). They would be given a list of components to purchase, such as the exact type of screws they’ll need to pick up at the hardware store, to the components they’ll need to 3D print themselves, such as a plastic casing. The Blueprint model outlines some assumptions—that they have a 3D printer and a bit of rudimentary soldering experience—then walks the user through, step by step, how to make the device, even powering it on and testing the electronics at the end.
That approach appears to be resonating among both customers and investors. Blueprint announced today that its platform has amassed more than 175,000 users in three months, and revealed that it has closed $1 million USD ($1.4 million CAD) in pre-seed funding from a16z speedrun—the Silicon Valley-based accelerator program to which it recently gained acceptance—Founders Inc, and undisclosed angels.
That figure includes $250,000 USD worth of previously unannounced simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs) from November, plus another $850,000 USD in SAFE funding that the company closed in May.
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Blueprint raised the latter financing to keep pace with the growth it has seen in recent months and expand its team. While Feldt, Purewal, and Seelam are located in San Francisco for a16z speedrun, they plan to return to Toronto after completing the program.
At the moment, Blueprint’s customers fall into two main categories: hobbyist hackers looking to make hardware they can use themselves, and founders building prototypes of products they hope to eventually sell. For entrepreneurs, Feldt sees Blueprint as a research and development tool that can empower small teams to do more with less.
“With Blueprint, you’re making ‘one of ones’—you’re not making products that can scale quite yet,” he said.
The company prohibits using its platform to design guns, ammo, and explosives—“anything whose primary purpose is to injure people or to cause mass harm.” Blueprint does currently allow compound bows, as the company considers them “consumer sporting goods.” However, the startup noted that it is continuously refining its safety policy as the platform grows.
Beyond banning weapons, Blueprint has few restrictions, and users have leveraged it to build a wide variety of products. One of the more interesting projects the company has seen lately is a pickleball launcher.
According to Purewal, one client runs a large medical device company in India and has leveraged the startup’s software to prototype a urine-sampling machine.
Purewal said the long-term, “North Star vision” is for Blueprint to become a blend of Lovable and Amazon that either directly sources and buys the components for users to build these devices themselves at the click of a button, or orchestrates their manufacturing, delivering the finished products to clients.
For now, Blueprint is monetizing its platform through monthly and annual subscriptions. The startup’s near-term focus is on improving its parts selection and figuring out how to leverage all of the data its users are generating to enhance the quality of its designs.
Feature image courtesy Blueprint.