graph
“Paper” will include a “Think Kit” toolbox for creating ideas more efficiently.

FiftyThree has already developed an “App of the Year.” It built hardware that garnered 4 and 5-star reviews on Amazon. And just this month, the company’s community of collaborators and creators grew to more than 1 million users.

But now the company, which employs 28 in Seattle and another 42 in New York City, has even bigger ambitions — and investors like what they’re seeing.

fiftythree11FiftyThree today announced a $30 million Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from existing investors. The fresh cash pushes total funding past $45 million.

The company raised the money primarily to drive development of a new set of productivity tools within its popular Paper app that will allow users to quickly create diagrams, charts, graphs, presentation sketches, and more. FiftyThree said that this new technology “augments the ability of the human hand so you can write and draw at the speed of thought.”

“Think of it as an auto-correct for drawing,” FiftyThree CEO Georg Petschnigg told GeekWire on Monday.

The target market for these tools, which are grouped into something called a “Think Kit,” is the education and enterprise industries — both of which were previously unfamiliar spaces for FiftyThree.

“For us, this round is about accepting the challenge of bringing a new crop of tools for creative thinking and introducing that in enterprise and education,” Petschnigg said.

fiftythree23333

Petschnigg explained that the original idea behind Paper, which is now on 5-to-10 percent of all iPads, was “to be a place where ideas began.” Now, with “Think Kit,” FiftyThree continuing that theme by building a new crop of tools to will help enterprise users and students rapidly sketch and whiteboard ideas within the same Paper app.

fiftythree43
Inside Paper’s new HQ in Pioneer Square. Photos via FiftyThree.

“We look at places where creative thinking needs to happen the most,” Petschnigg noted.

FiftyThree was founded by a team that includes several veterans of Microsoft, including Petschnigg, Julian Walker, and Andrew Allen. It raised a $15 million Series A round of funding back in June 2013 from Andreessen Horowitz, Highline Ventures, Thrive Capital, SV Angels and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

The Seattle office has increased its employee count by 18 workers in less than two years. The team in Seattle also just moved into a new office in Pioneer Square — check out the picture to the right.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.