Paper, a design platform aimed at the agentic era of software development, announced a $34 million Series A round led by Accel and ICONIQ. Additional participants include Designer Fund, WorkOS co-founder Michael Grinich, Lovable founder Anton Osika, and individual engineers and designers from Anthropic and OpenAI. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate product development, expand its team, and deepen investment in AI-native workflows for designers.
Unlike traditional design tools built around proprietary canvases, Paper renders using HTML and CSS, allowing designs to connect directly with production code and the AI agents increasingly responsible for writing it. The company said this approach reduces handoff friction between design and engineering teams. Paper has grown annual recurring revenue 25-fold since the early 2026 launch of Paper Desktop, a shared workspace that bridges design, code, and data in real time for humans and AI agents, and has appeared on Ramp’s Fastest Growing Companies list for four consecutive months. The platform is currently used by companies including Ramp, Lovable, Vercel, PostHog, Quartr, and Y Combinator.
KEY QUOTES:
“We want to help designers and creatives do deep, meaningful work, at a pace that supports their businesses in the agentic era. Helping design teams keep up with agentic workflows is our north star at Paper. Designers are being asked to move faster than ever, yet they’re still working with tools built for a different time.”
Stephen Haney, Founder and CEO, Paper
“Paper is defining a new category with a fundamentally new approach to design software. Most design tools were built for a world where humans did all the work. Paper is built for a world where humans and AI create together, and is already seeing strong adoption among some of the world’s most influential technology companies.”
Dan Levine, Partner, Accel
“The line between design and engineering is blurring, elevating the importance of taste. We believe Paper is the first canvas built for where software is going, and some of the most quality-obsessed teams we know are pulling it in from all directions.”
Mariano Payano, Partner, ICONIQ
