Phase raises $ 13 million to speed up the UX design process with its platform without code

UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout the development of products to build and apply design concepts and wire frames for functional consumer interfaces. Regular communications, feedback and testing are needed in order for the cooperation to work seamlessly and to provide a user experience, which is aligned with the intended design objectives.

Nick Buden, a serial entrepreneur who works as a UI/UX designer, wanted designers to spend their days alone in design work, not showing or meeting with engineers. To deal with a few ineffective steps in the design process, Buden founded Phase In 2017

“The application of the user interface is an expensive time -consuming manual process, including designers, product managers and engineers,” Buden said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. “Exhausted users testing also slow down until after this process is completed.”

Taipei and Berlin -based startup builds a platform without a code that helps UI/UX designers create fully interactive prototypes and on Thursday it is said to have raised $ 13 million from Gobi Partners, New Economy Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Shilling VC , Squareone, Wi Harper, 42CAP and 500 Global.

Starting today launched its first product, a consumer interface animation tool that will compete with Adobe After effects and Figma. Phase says its software allows the UI/UX and product designers to create interactive website simulations or applications “Without manual encoding or (use) of predisposed AI plugins.” It can also export the user interface code that is ready for manufacture, accelerating the design process.

Buden said the Phase product is much easier to use the UI/UX designer than other tools like Adobe After Effects or Figma. “Figma’s main differentiator is the completeness of the prototype. So on Figma you can build a prototype that does it, maybe 20% or 30% of what the real website does, and then the remaining 70% or 80% that the prototype does not do, then you have to communicate with engineers , Product leaders and people need to understand this, “Bodon mentioned. “Our product is built to make 100% of what makes a real website or application.”

This is the first in a series of launches and there are plans to introduce three more tools for the user interface of your wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) the platform this year and next year to optimize the whole The manual work needed for the need for the UI/UX Design needed for manual work, Budden told TechCrunch. The three new features will be: UI extended prototyping, user interface design and user interface export.

“We do not see the consumer interface animation as a stand-alone market for a long time, this is an opportunity to work, but this window will close after tools like Figma integrate the animation as a built-in feature,” Phase CEO told TechCrunch. “Our strategy is to win only the initial grip in animation now and to move our road map to more markets before this change happens.”

Soft Start in South Korea

The phase first presented its platform in South Korea in May after finding a reliable local partner to help start.

Designers accept new tools by watching their peers who discuss and use them, leading to the widespread acceptance of designer tools, Buden explained, but he pointed out that this influence is often “hyper-local”. For example, designers in London are mainly influenced by others in their area.

“Because of this local dynamics, we have launched a region along the region, which allows us to engage deeply with every design community and build inertia,” Buden told TechCrunch.

South Korea has about 100,000 designers, and phase says that within a few weeks after the launch of its product, over 10,000 have tested it. This practical approach has successfully launched the growth of the South Korea Community-but it did not work out as well as the company hoped in other regions.

“The bigger markets had more scaled design communities, which made it difficult to acquire adhesion. After months of struggling to recreate Korea’s success, we replaced the gears and opened a global beta version, “said Phase CEO. “With adjustments to our shopping strategy, we saw a rapid and sustainable growth (…) that the inertia combined with the stabilization of the product is why we are now moving from beta.”

Phase aims to enter the US and the European market as its priority.