FiftyThree

FiftyThree, Inc. was a technology firm established in 2011 with a focus on creating tools for mobile creativity. The company was founded in New York by Georg Petschnigg, Jonathan Harris, Julian Walker, and Andrew S. Allen, a team of former colleagues from Microsoft. Their shared background, particularly on projects like the unreleased Microsoft Courier tablet, fueled their ambition to develop user-friendly creativity software, moving away from the complex interfaces common in professional design tools.

The company's first product, Paper, launched in March 2012 for the iPad and quickly gained recognition, being named Apple's iPad App of the Year. Paper provided users with digital journals for sketching, drawing, and note-taking, amassing 1.5 million downloads within two weeks of its release. It featured a settings-free interface with tools for drawing, sketching, writing, and coloring, and utilized gestures for navigation, aiming for a natural and intuitive user experience. The app initially offered a free version with additional tools available through in-app purchases, but by February 2015, all creative tools were made free to all users. Over its lifetime, Paper expanded to the iPhone and added functionalities like photo imports, text tools with swipe-to-style formatting, and 'Think Kit' for creating diagrams and charts.

In addition to software, FiftyThree developed a hardware product, the Pencil, a digital stylus designed to work seamlessly with Paper, featuring palm rejection, a built-in eraser, and blending capabilities. The company's business model included revenue from the Pencil, in-app purchases within Paper (before they became free), and later, a subscription service called Paper Pro. Another significant product was Paste, a collaborative presentation tool launched in 2017. Paste was designed for creative teams to build presentations by dragging and dropping content like images, videos, and documents from various sources, including direct integrations with services like Slack and Google Docs. Revenue for Paste was generated through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.

FiftyThree secured a $15 million Series A funding round in June 2013, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from investors like Jack Dorsey. However, the company faced increased competition, notably after Apple launched its own iPad Pro and Apple Pencil in 2015, which impacted FiftyThree's profitability. On August 21, 2018, the Dutch file-sharing service WeTransfer acquired FiftyThree's assets, including its patents, trademarks, and both the Paper and Paste applications. The majority of the FiftyThree team, including its executives, joined WeTransfer, which continued to operate and support the apps under its own brand, effectively marking the end of FiftyThree as an independent entity.

Keywords: mobile creativity, digital sketchbook, iPad app, presentation software, collaborative tools, digital stylus, Paper app, Paste app, Georg Petschnigg, Andrew Allen, Jonathan Harris, Julian Walker, WeTransfer acquisition, creative software, user interface design, note-taking app, diagramming tool, iOS application, design tools, digital journal, productivity app, startup exit