Google puts $1M into 3D design app Rooms after more than one million ‘rooms’ created

3D design app Rooms just landed more funding. Launched into beta in 2023, the app from ex-Google employees allows users to build and code interactive 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of more than 10,000 items, which can be further edited using the programming language Lua.

Now, Google itself has invested $1 million into the app as part of a partnership deal that also offered Rooms early access to Google’s Gemini AI.

Founded by former Googlers including Jason Toff, Bruno Oliveira, and Nick Kruge, who have backgrounds in AR/VR, games, and YouTube, Rooms offers a way to create mini 3D spaces, as well as a TikTok-like experience for browsing those spaces in a vertical feed. Part creative outlet and part intro to coding, the experience allows “room” creators to express themselves through digital art that can then be remixed by others into rooms of their own making.

Initially, creators were building simple spaces and mini-games using the technology, but more recent trends see people building even larger spaces and using the app to tell stories, Toff tells TechCrunch.

One example of this trend comes from the user named eodqueen, who first built standard rooms and then later began to create even bigger spaces while also weaving in animation and interactivity.

The app itself was also updated to version 3.0 on November 26, 2024, with a new Actions editor that lets users bring their rooms to life without having to code. Soon, Rooms plans to leverage its access to Gemini to further enhance the in-app experience via a text-to-speech mode.

Thanks to an integration with Gemini 2.0 Flash, creators will be able to add narration and characters will be able to speak, which will enable broader storytelling capabilities.

Creators will even be able choose what sort of tone they should use when characters are speaking, like angry, bored, calm, confident, enthusiastic, happy, excited, and others, according to a demonstration of the feature published by Rooms on YouTube.

Things, Inc., the company behind Rooms, also announced it has surpassed 1 million rooms built on the platform and that over 10,000 things and objects are now available in its inventory for designing these small, digital spaces. The latter is up from over 7,500 digital items as of April 2024.

The startup isn’t sharing any updates around user numbers or engagement times, but last year had grown Rooms to a quarter of a million registered users.

The funding, which closed in December, came from Google itself (not GV, Alphabet’s venture arm) and was structured as a SAFE, which gives Google the ability to invest in Rooms’ next round, its Series A. The startup previously raised $10 million in seed funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer and VP of Design & Emerging Products, Scott Belsky, as well as Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, among others.

Rooms is currently available on the web and on iOS. It has not yet introduced monetization.