Sketchfab

Sketchfab
Information
Industry	3D content publishing, internet
Founded	2012, Paris, France
Founder	Alban Denoyel, Cédric Pinson, Pierre-Antoine Passet
Headquarters	New York City, United States, with most staff in Paris, France (as of 2021)
Notable Personnel	Alban Denoyel (co-founder and CEO), Cédric Pinson (co-founder and CTO), Pierre-Antoine Passet (co-founder and CPO)
Products	Sketchfab web 3D viewer and embeds, Sketchfab VR
Parent	KitBash (since August 2026); previously Epic Games (2021-2026)
Website	https://sketchfab.com

Sketchfab is a web platform for publishing, sharing, embedding and downloading 3D models, which visitors can view in a web browser, in virtual reality headsets and in augmented reality on phones and tablets. The company was founded in Paris in early 2012 by Alban Denoyel, Cédric Pinson and Pierre-Antoine Passet. TechCrunch described it in 2016 as "a sort of YouTube or SoundCloud for 3D files". Its About page lists more than 8 million 3D models and more than 25 million registered users.

Sketchfab added a VR button to its browser viewer through WebVR and released VR apps for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard in May 2016. In September 2017 its iOS app gained ARKit support for placing models in the camera view. Epic Games acquired the company in July 2021. After Epic opened its Fab marketplace in October 2024, the Sketchfab Store closed and paid model sales moved to Fab. On 10 August 2026 KitBash, the company behind KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla, announced that it had acquired Sketchfab and ArtStation from Epic Games.

This article covers the company and its web platform. The Steam VR application is covered in Sketchfab VR.

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Founding, founders, funding rounds, library sizes, VR/AR feature launches, store, Epic acquisition, Fab transition, KitBash sale and current help-center VR/AR support checked against every cited source. About review dates.

History

Founding and early funding (2012-2015)

According to the company, Sketchfab started in Paris in early 2012. Its About page names Denoyel as co-founder and CEO, Pinson as co-founder and CTO, and Passet as co-founder and CPO. In a 2021 profile, The French Tech Journal wrote that Denoyel was working for a photo magazine when he started the company and that his sculpting hobby had led him to digital 3D art. He applied to Y Combinator and Techstars and was accepted by Techstars, which first brought him to New York. The company set up its headquarters in New York City soon after launch, but as it grew Denoyel placed most of the team, and especially its technical staff, in Paris.

In December 2013 Sketchfab raised 2 million US dollars from Balderton, Partech and the angel investor David Cohen. TechCrunch reported that users were uploading about 300 files a day and that the site held 70,000 3D files. Denoyel told the outlet: "We only do one thing, to display 3D files in the browser, but we do it well and fast". In March 2014 a Sketchfab upload add-on was bundled with Blender 2.70, which BlenderNation called the first add-on to follow the Blender Foundation's rules for commercial add-ons. Denoyel said at the time that more than 20 percent of uploads were .blend files.

In June 2015 Sketchfab raised a 7 million US dollar Series A round led by FirstMark Capital, with its existing backers Techstars, Balderton, Partech and Borealis also taking part. It had previously raised 2 million US dollars in seed funding and had passed 300,000 files. Denoyel said that "WebGL has become the standard for displaying 3D graphics in a browser" and named WebVR as the next step; the company said it planned to invest more in VR and AR.

VR, AR and the store (2016-2019)

Sketchfab added Google Cardboard viewing through WebVR in January 2016. On 16 May 2016 it announced dedicated VR apps for Oculus, HTC Vive, Gear VR and Cardboard, which showed a curated selection of models, along with WebVR support that put a VR button on every model in the browser viewer. WebVR mode included positional tracking on headsets that supported it, which at the time meant Oculus and Vive. TechCrunch reported that the site then held 750,000 3D models.

The iOS app update of September 2017 added an AR button to model pages. Users pointed an iPhone or iPad at a flat surface, tapped to place the model, and could then scale and rotate it by pinching and turning. The feature required iOS 11. TechCrunch noted that it drew a web view over the camera image, which could cause some lag, and that the site then offered 2 million 3D objects. UploadVR reported that the AR mode could also show work made in VR creation tools such as Google's Tilt Brush, Oculus Medium and Gravity Sketch, and that support for Google's ARCore on Android was planned.

In January 2018 Sketchfab opened a store where users could buy and sell 3D models for commercial reuse. TechCrunch compared it to a stock photography site; most models cost between about 10 and 100 US dollars and were delivered in the glTF format, which the outlet said should work in Unity or Unreal Engine. In a May 2019 post about the new Oculus Quest, Sketchfab said its viewer worked on the standalone headset out of the box through WebVR, that anything published on the site was accessible on the Quest, and that users could view content at room scale without extra hardware. The company said this gave access to more than 3 million 3D scenes in VR.

Enterprise focus and profitability (2017-2020)

The French Tech Journal reported that Denoyel tried to raise a Series B in 2017 and was turned down more than 100 times as interest in VR faded. The company switched on monetization, moved early from consumers toward enterprise customers, and kept costs low by keeping most staff in France. It announced its first profit in November 2020 and had 37 employees at the time of the January 2021 profile; the outlet put its venture funding since 2015 at more than 13 million US dollars. In May 2020 Sketchfab launched a team product for companies to share, review, edit and convert 3D models internally with per-file permissions. It was first offered on the Enterprise plan.

Epic Games ownership (2021-2026)

Denoyel announced on 21 July 2021 that Sketchfab was joining Epic Games. He wrote that the community was "now 5 million strong" and that Sketchfab would "remain an independently branded service with the same mission and vision". The two companies had started working together earlier in 2021 through an Epic MegaGrant. With the deal, the store's fee fell to 12 percent, Plus plan features became free, Pro uploads rose from 30 to 50 a month, and the Business plan was retired with its customers moved to enterprise features. CG Channel reported that financial terms were not disclosed, that the store fee had previously been 30 percent, and that Sketchfab would keep supporting the roughly 90 creation, CAD, scanning and game development tools it worked with, including Unity, a competitor of Epic's Unreal Engine.

At the Game Developers Conference on 22 March 2023 Epic announced Fab, a single marketplace for digital assets that would bring together Sketchfab, the ArtStation Marketplace, the Unreal Engine Marketplace and Quixel. Sketchfab described itself as the foundation of the new store and promised sellers the same 88 percent revenue share. A standalone launch planned for later in 2023 was postponed to 2024. Fab launched on 22 October 2024, and the Sketchfab Store closed the same day. Earlier store listings stayed viewable but could no longer be bought, and sellers were told they could migrate their products to Fab "well into 2025". The 3D viewer, editor, embeds, Pro and Premium plans, community features and the download, viewer and data APIs were kept, and Sketchfab said it would give notice before ending support for free downloadable content.

The planned end of free licensing drew objections from historians, archaeologists and archivists who use the site to share digitized museum and university collections. A petition by the folk art specialist Emily Esser called the change "the virtual equivalent of burning the Library of Alexandria". Epic's Bill Clifford replied that the company had "no intention of burning any libraries" and that cultural heritage models would remain available, and Epic's Jake Jones said Epic would not remove sharing or downloading on Sketchfab "until we have a viable alternative".

KitBash ownership (2026-present)

On 10 August 2026 KitBash announced that it had acquired Sketchfab and ArtStation from Epic Games; terms were not disclosed. KitBash said there would be no changes to how creators access or use the two platforms, that existing portfolios, libraries and workflows would continue, and that no roadmap or product integrations had been announced. GamesBeat reported that pricing, subscription plans and enterprise agreements were unchanged and that users could keep sharing and downloading models as before. According to 80 Level, Epic said it was prioritizing Unreal Engine 6, Fortnite, its developer ecosystem and the Epic Games Store, and its statement announced no ownership change for Fab. Game World Observer reported that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the Fab marketplace would remain under Epic's management.

Growth of the library

Date	Reported size	Source
December 2013	70,000 3D files	TechCrunch
June 2015	More than 300,000 files	TechCrunch
May 2016	750,000 3D models	TechCrunch
September 2017	2 million 3D objects	TechCrunch
May 2019	More than 3 million 3D scenes viewable in VR	Sketchfab
July 2021	Community of 5 million	Sketchfab
2026	More than 8 million models; more than 25 million registered users	Sketchfab About page

Products

Product or feature	Introduced	Description
Web 3D viewer and embeds	Core product from the start	Browser viewer for uploaded models, embeddable on other sites; kept unchanged after the 2024 store closure
VR mode in the web viewer	January 2016 (Cardboard); May 2016 (all headsets)	VR button on model pages, first through WebVR
Sketchfab VR apps	May 2016	Curated VR showcase apps for Oculus, HTC Vive, Gear VR and Cardboard
AR mode in the mobile app	September 2017 (iOS)	Places models on real surfaces through ARKit; ARCore support was announced as planned
Sketchfab Store	January 2018	Marketplace for commercially licensed models; closed on 22 October 2024 when sales moved to Fab
Team collaboration platform	May 2020	Private sharing, review and conversion of 3D assets for companies, first on the Enterprise plan

XR work

Viewing models in VR and AR has been part of Sketchfab's pitch since its 2015 funding round, when Denoyel named WebVR as the next step after WebGL. The 2016 WebVR mode let creators look at their own uploads in a headset without importing them into a game engine, and the company called Sketchfab VR "much more of a contemplative experience" in which users explore a volumetric scene with six degrees of freedom. TechCrunch suggested that 3D artists could use it to preview characters and objects for VR games.

Sketchfab's help center article on VR, dated August 2026, lists the supported combinations as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets in Chrome or Firefox (Firefox marked as less reliable), Windows Mixed Reality in Edge, and the Oculus Quest in the Oculus Browser. For PC headsets in Chrome it tells users to enable the WebXR Device API flag and to set the forced WebXR runtime to SteamVR (OpenVR). A vr_quality parameter added to a model's embed URL (1.5 by default, 2.5 or 3.5) raises the rendering resolution above the reduced level the viewer uses by default to keep the frame rate up. The same article says Google Cardboard is no longer maintained or supported in the Sketchfab viewer.

For AR, the help center describes two current routes. Downloadable models can be viewed on iOS by opening their USDZ version in Apple's Quick Look (AR Quick Look), and Pro members and above can download a converted USDZ file of their own models for the same purpose. Premium and Enterprise customers can enable an app-free AR mode for any of their models on iOS and Android. Password-protected models cannot be opened in AR.

The platform also hosts work made inside VR creation tools; UploadVR named pieces from Tilt Brush, Oculus Medium and Gravity Sketch alongside models from conventional 3D software. In its 2021 acquisition announcement, Sketchfab said it planned to extend its integrations with "all creation tools and 3D/VR/AR platforms".

See also

• Sketchfab VR
• Epic Games
• WebXR
• Virtual heritage