Kind Designs, a Miami-based startup founded by former lawyer Anya Freeman, is developing 3D printed living seawalls that protect coastlines from flooding while restoring marine habitats. These seawalls use biomimicry to mimic natural mangrove root structures, creating micro-textures that support coral and oyster growth while dissipating 45% of wave energy. The company has scaled from a 3,000 sq ft space to a 50,000 sq ft factory with six robots, producing seawalls in approximately one hour each. The technology addresses Miami's critical infrastructure challenge of being below sea level and sinking, with the first installation thriving after nearly two years.
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I Spent The Day With a $100M StartupAdded:
Miami has a problem. It's below sea level suffers from massive flooding, and it's sinking. This $100 million startup, Kind Designs, is looking to fix that.
They build 3D printed living seaw walls that save marine habitats and prevent flooding. In fact, these seaw walls work so well that even Mark Cuban decided to invest. In today's episode of Venture Vlogs, we'll be spending the day with Anna Freeman, the CEO of Kind and a former lawyer who quit her job to enter an industry she knew nothing about with the goal of building a solution that could save Miami.
What's up, guys? We're here in Miami visiting a $100 million startup that builds living seaw walls to protect the coastlines here in Miami. We're going to jump into this $100 million startup.
Let's hop in. I feel like you have the funnest job ever. I know. Seriously, we have a dog.
>> I need I need a onesie. Like, I want to like This is like the coolest thing ever.
>> I have many onesies inside.
>> Don't threaten me with a good I will throw it on right now. I'm so serious.
>> It won't fit you.
>> It won't. No offense, >> Bryce.
>> Nice to meet you.
>> Nice to meet you as well.
>> Thank you for coming.
>> I am super excited to be here in this insane operation. I saw you guys on Instagram.
building livable seaw walls here in Miami and I was like, "Yo, I got to go see this cool company."
>> Yeah. We're your neighbors.
>> Yeah. And it's it's insane because you're right here on the water. You're building those things. So, give me the story behind like what made you get into this industry.
>> Yeah, sure. So, originally I'm not from Florida.
>> I'm from Ukraine. I grew up in Israel and I come got to come to the US when I was already in high school. My dad got a job with the space program. So, we all moved and I ended up going in Miami cuz I went to UN law. I got scholarship to go. That's like the American dream, you know, a lawyer, doctor. Yeah.
>> And so I chose law. I came here to study at M. Graduated, was working as a lawyer, great life, but started to notice my community had a big problem with flooding. As you know, storm surges are more frequent, the flooding is more intense, and there's endless conferences to talk about the problem, but nobody was focused on practical solutions. And so 2024 I left behind my legal career and launched client designs with a mission obsession of finding that solution for my community. Two, making it something that's extremely scalable, duplicatable, affordable so we can really make Florida an example to the rest of the world what's possible in coastal infrastructure. And three, we wanted to build something awesome for the ocean. So put together a team and got started. you are insanely obsessed because to just go through the process of you're a lawyer deciding to completely shift gears and like take on this insane risk like did you have experience in this space previously or you were just like yo I hate this problem I'm going to solve it >> I knew nothing about construction I knew nothing about being a startup founder I thought you like code to be a founder basically but I had this mission obsession and I put together a team who had the missing pieces I'm like the bus driver I know where we're going and I'm filling up the bus with expert experts in material science, obviously concrete, 3D printing, technology, design and engineering.
>> Well, we have a lot of stuff to go through here in this incredible factory.
So, can you show me around?
>> Sure. So, the process starts with the robots. So, come through here.
>> Oh, yes. Yes. We are following you.
>> This is Pushkin.
>> What's up, Pushkin?
>> Yeah. Pushkin, say hi.
>> Is that like a Ukrainian name?
>> It's Yes. Yeah. A Russian name.
>> Russian. Pushkin.
>> Good boy, buddy.
Process starts obviously with our robots. So today we have three robots.
Our fourth robot is literally in the port. He's going to be here hopefully tomorrow.
>> So we're doubling the production lines and we just raised another round. That's why Mark Cuban was here. Yeah. Thank you.
>> I love it. Congrats on that.
>> Thank you. And with that round we're adding a third production line. So by the end of the quarter we'll have six robots and that's we're going to be at max capacity here and then we need to move >> six robots.
>> How the hell did you convince Mark Cuban to jump into the 3D printed seaw wall space? Yeah, I know. It's not exactly the space he usually invests in. He uh his team saw me speaking and I think when I'm on stage, I'm just like so crazy about this and obsessed. People are like, "She's just like crazy enough to pull this off, you know?"
>> I mean, your energy is just infectious.
>> So, six robots is the plan. It looks like you have like some sort of train like line coming in here >> behind me. These are just small seaw walls. These are just samples we're sending to University of Miami. We're doing some R&D. We're actually removing rebar. Yeah. out of seaw walls, which is pretty cool cuz the reason seaw walls fail now is that rebar rusts.
>> So they only last like 25 years. Rebar rusts, it expands, it pops the concrete seaw wall.
>> Honestly, rebar doesn't belong in the water. Even even if it's galvanized or fiberglass, it will rust. So we are doing something a little bit different.
Next generation living seaw walls would not have rebar. So this is just for the testing campaign with the University of Miami. So can you explain the concept of like a living seaw wall and how you were able to put together the team that could do the R&D to get to the point where you have what you have now which is seaw walls that last can they go like forever?
>> Well with the rebar for right now we're still using rebar so they are going to last about 40 years.
>> Wow.
>> Next generation seaw walls will be able to last double that time.
>> So it's going to be pretty transformative for the industry. As far as the team, we have an amazing team of geniuses. Basically, as guarding my COO, my COO was employee number seven with Elon at the Boring Company.
>> So, they were doing pre-cast concrete tunnels. You know those you drive the Tesla from Vegas to LA. Yeah. And he scaled our facilities to three different states and then he was with Icon 3D printing houses. So, similar technology, different application. And then the rest of the team, a lot of marine biologists, engineers, architects who become now designers, similar software. And believe it or not, a lot of our amazing robot techs who like literally like done things no one's done in the world, I found on Craigslist.
>> What?
>> I'm a huge Craigslist girl. I just found out one of our investors, Anthro Ventures in SF, his best friend is Craig.
>> That's crazy.
>> And he said Craig's intentionally not updating the website. Like he wants it to look like that.
>> He wants it to be a vibe. He wants to keep preserve what made Craigslist Craigslist.
>> But that's where I found the text because I was trying to find people on traditional like uh LinkedIn or Indeed.
>> But they're like, >> "What's like the work life balance?"
>> I'm like, "You're 22. Like there is no balance. You have to have calluses.
We're here to suffer. We're building you something massive. You're not going to be a pioneer taking a vacation every other weekend." Ultimately, I found those kind of badasses on Instagram.
Mostly immigrants. They came from construction background. uh some architecture engineering backgrounds and they're just down to like get dirty, work hard and really really push the envelope with us.
>> That's incredible. So like one of these robots can start 3D printing these living seaw walls. Can a robot do a whole seaw wall?
>> Yeah. So we can go outside. Show us the finished seaw walls. We are doing one seaw wall in an hour. Extremely extremely fast.
>> That's insanely fast.
>> Let's go to this one.
>> Wow. I mean these are huge. Like >> so yeah took us 3 hours to do these three. This is our residential project for Venetian Causeway. So, usually when you produce manufacture a seaw wall, it's flat concrete slab. We've all seen it.
>> What makes this living is number one, >> this texture. It's ideal for corals and oysters.
>> When they're babies, they're microscopic and they like shade.
>> So, they all start growing in these little layers almost immediately. We have some amazing videos for the first one year of the transformation of the seaw wall. And you >> It's almost like a baby farm. Yeah, exactly. Or like an apartment.
So that's the micro texture that's helpful. Then the macro design, it's always biomimicry. So biomimicry means we're mimicking whatever is the local natural marine habitat.
>> In South Florida, Venetian where this is going, it's uh mangrove trees. Yeah.
>> So this is mangrove tree roots. And the point is to create small caves for fish to hide from predators, for crabs, and also to dissipate waves. So they can get up in these like these grooves in here and just like >> and hide from the predator. Exactly. You can see my hand is hidden.
>> Wow.
>> And as a bonus, this also dissipates waves. So this design here we tested with the University of Miami. It dissipates 45% wave energy. So a regular seaw wall actually reflects waves. Yeah.
>> And causes erosion at the bottom over topping. This absorbs half the wave impact.
>> That's insane. And with all the environmental benefits, it's still price competitive and usually cheaper than a conventional toxic concrete seaw wall.
>> What you guys are doing here is absolutely absurd.
>> Thank you.
>> And to think that this can all be done in a singular hour.
>> Yes.
>> How long did it take you to get to the point where you had enough confidence putting one of these together from like a research standpoint? Was it years?
Like were you able to get a good proof of concept out pretty early? What was that process like?
>> 6 months from when we got our first dollar to when we had a seaw wall in the water. Yep. Our first installation was the world's first 3D printed seaw wall.
It uh Doc Marine, a local contractor, did the install on Pine Tree Drive.
>> Yeah.
>> And now it's been there for almost two years. It's thriving. It's full of oysters and barnacles and grazing algae.
>> But that happened extremely fast because structurally this living seaw wall is identical to traditional pre-cast walls.
So the engineers felt very comfortable signing off on it right from the beginning. And we did three-point load testing, destructive testing, all the structural testing right away with the University of Miami. So yeah, they got permitted almost immediately.
>> This is incredible.
>> Yeah. Very first project we got paid for. So wasn't I guess not even technically a pilot.
>> So these ones are like these are ready to go in water. Like when the time comes, you guys put them on a truck or do you just ship them down the like the river?
>> So we are on the Miami River. It's a drive-thru basically. You can come on the barge, pick up your seaw wall panels or they or they can go by truck.
>> Oh, you got to show me that. Like what does the view look like from over there?
>> Let's go. Do you want to go up see the filling station first?
>> Oh, no. I would love to.
>> I don't know if you were scared of heights.
>> I'm I am not afraid of heights.
>> I made Mark Cuban climb and I know he had two uh hip replacements.
>> Really? I didn't know.
>> He climbed there like 2 seconds.
>> Oh, he was down.
>> He's athletic.
>> I'm I'm totally down. All right, we're going up.
>> Nice. Good form. Good form.
>> You're a natural. You're hired.
>> It feels good.
>> So, after the seaw walls are printed, >> Yeah.
>> cuz we print them hollow. They're move they're moved here and this is where we fill them.
>> So, as you can see, this is the finished seaw wall. It's filled with concrete. It has the rebar and it has the lifting loops. That's how you pick it up. And then all of these panels go into the rack and from the rack they're delivered by water or by truck. So, right now the boys are building the second filling station cuz we're doing the second production line next to this one. So, two robots, a train track basically, and then a filling station just like this.
So, the plan is to just be able to get out pretty much double the amount of capacity you're currently doing.
>> Yeah, we've sold already $10 million in Seaw Walls for the next 12 months.
>> That's only in Miami.
>> Yeah, pretty much.
>> Oh my gosh.
>> We have some really big projects coming up. We're doing the Fountain Blue Hotel.
>> Yeah, >> a classic. Uh that should be in June. Uh we're doing Church by the Sea. It's a really historic church in uh Fort Lauderdale. Also very big seaw wall.
>> Tons of oysters there. So all of those 100 to 200 panels each. Wow.
>> So we got to be printing fast.
>> This is insane. The fact that this is just only in Miami, the rest of the world is literally going to be like knocking on your door. You're going to grow out of space here.
>> It's ground zero. It's our lead designer. Hey, Diego. Say hi.
>> What's up?
>> Well, it makes so much sense to be building this in Miami because we are the first city really facing the challenge of flooding and rising sea levels at scale. And we're either going to be an example to the rest of the world or a lesson. So, my job is to make us an example. It's also the biggest seaw wall market in the world. So, that helps me when I'm fundraising.
Obviously, we can be a unicorn just servicing one county.
>> Wow.
>> That's how big the SEO market is. It's really ground zero for this problem.
It's up to us to solve it.
>> You know, it also feels like you are creating this new renaissance here in Miami. I know I've heard a ton of talk we have billionaires moving down here, but one of my biggest kind of like thesis behind this is that it's not about having billionaires here. It's about having billion-dollar companies because then you have founders that can employ more people and reinvest into the whole startup world and the ecosystem here in Miami. and like you're leading by example. One of the coolest startups easily that I've seen beyond just Miami, but building it here in Miami strategically, that was very cool.
>> Thanks so much. I think there's a couple special things about building something in Miami. Number one, you are a big fish in a small pond and genuinely we have so much support from local government and a lot of people passed on me especially in the earlier rounds cuz they said you are never going to get your stuff permitted.
It's going to be a nightmare to get this approved. We're in the water in like 6 months. not just approve but actually now counties like Miami Day County, cities like City of Miami, North Bay Village, they have passed legislation incentivizing 3D printed living seaw walls. For example, city of Miami, you get half off your building permit if you show us in your plans. Yeah. City of Fort Lauderdale right now, the pending bill with Commissioner Ben Sorenson for 100% off. North Bay Village, you get half off. They were the first ones.
Coral Gables, you get 20% off. And at the county level, you are exempt from having to put in rip wrap, the big boulders in front of the seaw wall. You don't have to put those in the water if you use living seaw walls in your project.
>> That's so dope.
>> So, not only have they allowed us to be here, they have really actively helped us thrive. That is really unusual. I guarantee if you're starting this in California, mayors and commissioners now not lining up to rewrite seaw wall code from 50 years ago.
>> How difficult was it when you originally were trying to get in touch with these decision makers within these local governments? Like, did you have access to that or did you just like knock on doors to get your foot in the door? You know, it was easy because of our investors. So, we've been so lucky to be pretty much overs subscribed every round. We got to choose our investors and they're all strategic. Half is construction people. Like my first check is coastal construction. You see their signs everywhere here. And they help just get us into plans of things they're building on the water, make introductions to other developers, GCs.
The other half of the cap table is government people. So, former commissioners, we have two former mayors, congressmen, and lobbying groups. Like one of our lead investors is Gobo Ventures. They're Florida based VC that are themselves lobbyists. They have these incredible relationship in the state and in DC and they provide all of those relationships up all those doors for us. How cool is that?
>> That's insane. And you're dropping a master class over here. You see so many founders are like, "Oh, we just want to go get the biggest name in VC, but it's like you're thinking a different planet.
It's like 3D chess with you. Get the right name, not the biggest."
>> We're definitely outliers. Like I don't really know any Silicon Valley investors and we raised $20 million ago. Anthro was one of our investors VC. That's the only VC really in California. It's all kind of scrappy local people with like deep understanding of the problem and the right relationships to solve it. And they're extremely engaged. I send out monthly investor updates religiously because everyone is so involved. Like they'll they'll drop by, investors drop by every other day here.
>> That's fire, >> right? Isn't that cool? So, we may not have like the cool VCs on our cap table, but we have the most badass like real investors who are so like bought in to our vision. It's just inevitable that we're going to succeed together.
>> I don't think you need the cool VCs. You You got the cool suits.
>> I'm just kidding. Maybe we are cool and >> I think you are incredibly cool. Like I would love to come here and get dirty every day. This is a side of Miami. You think back that way everyone's like, "Oh, we're going to the beach for other reasons." It's like, "No, we're going to the concrete pad."
>> I know. We just finished printing. Like when we're printing, like a lot, especially guys, they come, they don't want to leave. Like super like wealthy whatever investors like, "Can I just like sit in the corner? Can I put some rebar in?" Cuz the robots are badass.
It's everything happens very fast here.
You have to be like fit and uh just like think on your feet very quickly. It's a big It's a dangerous job.
>> Yeah.
>> It's also extremely I don't know rewarding and exciting. So it's a good Well, I think we built a really good culture. I >> I can see it.
>> Yeah.
>> How often are you guys spinning up the robots? Are you are you So these guys will get rolling here in a little bit and they'll start building again.
>> Yeah, exactly. Every single day we're printing now. And that's why we had to buy four more robots.
>> Oh my god. What is the cost of a robot like one of those big things down there?
>> So, we have a relationship obviously with a robot manufacturer. So, we buy the robotic components and then we customize them. So, then we add we customize cuz they're traditionally made well to manufacture cars. It's like ABB or CUCA arms you see everyone has seen.
Uh then they've been repurposed to 3D print houses and then we customize them again to pretty 3D print walls again, wall after wall after wall. We're the only company in the world that has a large scale 3D printing factory. Every other type of company that's 3D printing with concrete is doing it on site. So they actually bring the robots to the construction site and print the houses within the parameters of the gantry printer. We're building something very different which is a factory.
>> Yeah. I think this model feels it feels more natural for printing something and it's also a thing of I don't know where the next one will be because you were saying you guys don't really need to be near the water for this to work.
>> Yeah, we discovered that maybe we love being near the water but we don't have to be. So, we're already working with Miami Day County with the Beacon Council and the state of Florida. The Florida who invested in us, Florida opportunity fund. They're helping us locate 5 to 10 acres of land. We have to stay in Miami Day County. We love it here.
>> All right.
>> And so, we're exploring some of that.
One possibility, which now I've latched on to, is Virginia Key.
>> Oo.
>> Sen off of Kibiscane. They have Virginia Key which is just a water processing plant >> and next to it is literally about 10 acre flat long piece of >> Oh my gosh. I can only imagine what they charge for that. Right.
>> There's absolutely nothing there. I don't think they'll charge much because also >> is it stateowned or private?
>> County owned.
>> Oh my goodness. That's great.
>> And it's next to a plant. Like nobody wants to be next to those plants.
>> Yeah. Only you want to be next to the plant.
>> Exactly. We'll take it.
>> Legit. That's perfect.
>> Yeah. So that's So that this will be our last year here. We're maximizing production capacity to the fullest and then we're leaving uh by the end of next year.
>> So, I got in at the right time because the next time I get to do this chat with you, it'll be a absurdly large facility.
>> Seriously, every time you come, it's going to be dramatically different. This is different from how it was a month ago. Dramatically different. And we're doubling this whole like in two weeks we're have two of these production lines. So, that's going to be very different.
>> You see that? You see that rack there?
That was completely full last week.
Every single just seaw walls.
>> Yeah. We just delivered those to Miami Shores. They're installing them today.
>> That's incredible.
>> So, they're Bayfront Park. We printed 111 walls in a couple weeks.
>> Jeez.
>> Yeah, >> man. This is crazy.
>> So, we need space.
>> So, what time do these things get rolling?
>> So, today we're doing we have print, as you can see, printing a gazillion samples. Yeah.
>> Uh cuz we're testing some new reinforcement strategies. They already printed a lot of those in the morning.
>> These look so cool.
This place is just insane.
They're building. That's what That's a lot of what we're doing today. They're building the second production line. So, that's going to be the second filling station.
>> The fun is happening. You're you're getting everything set up for the next line.
>> Yeah. Cuz the robot arrives tomorrow.
>> So, will it I mean, how long before the robot goes into production after it arrives? Like next day or a couple days?
>> No, a couple weeks.
>> Couple weeks.
>> Yeah. By miday, we'll have four robots running.
>> Yeah. So, very soon. So, we're making space for a new friend. We got to find a name if you have any ideas.
>> Wait, so you name all of them?
>> Yeah. The first guy is Noah. Like Noah's Ark. Yeah.
>> Cuz he's saving us from the floods. And the next two arrived together. They're twins. And the day they arrived, the queen of the Congo was here.
>> Oh, wow.
>> Yes. And she said that in the Congo, twins always have the same names. Yeah.
>> The eldest twin is Buoie. And then the younger one is Cuka. And so that's what we named them. And so the fourth guy though, no ideas yet.
>> I'm going to start sending you some names in the DMs now.
>> Yeah, 100%. It's like having a baby, you know. Everyone's welcome to contribute ideas.
>> I love it. So, how long has this been? 2 3 years for you?
>> Yeah, 2 and a half years. So, we moved here last year.
>> Uhhuh.
>> We started So, this is 50,000 ft². We started in 3,000 ft.
>> Yeah.
>> We basically got one of our investors to give us a little corner of his factory.
We made a huge mess. There was dust everywhere. They were very unhappy with us, but we were able to 3D print the world's first seaw wall.
>> Yeah.
>> And install it. Off of that, we raised the first round in 24. We raised uh 6.5 million.
>> And then with that, we launched the factory here.
>> Wow.
>> So, we've been building here. Yeah.
since last year, but it's grown so fast.
>> I mean, it just feels like it's just a like a firm indicator that like you cannot have any experience in something, but if you believe in it so deeply that it should exist, you can make some happen.
>> 100%. You have to have an obsession, a passion, and then find the team that has all the missing pieces. You will never have all of the answers and pieces within yourself. You have to just be able to see the vision and bring the people who can believe in it and make you pull it off with you.
>> Well, I appreciate you giving me this full tour. Of course, you're always welcome, our neighbor.
>> I am legit like just stunned by this.
Like, this is so cool that it exists here in Miami and that like it's going to be like I don't even know how many billion dollar startups have come out of Miami, but >> Well, I can tell you no women. We've never had a female unicorn in Miami.
It's time. It's time.
>> You're going to be the first.
>> Thank you. Once you have the one to be the What was it? The How long does someone run the mile in under what was the big difference?
>> Like under two and a half hour. Two hours and under three hours. Oh, the mile. Was the mile the 5 hour? Oh. Oh, yeah. when the first person ran in under four minutes, I think >> then like a 100 people ran in under four minutes. So that's that's what we want to bring to Miami. First female unicorn of many.
>> I believe it's going to happen. One and I do think that you're charting a new path for women, not just in this not just in Miami, but just overall in general. Like there's not a lot of like woman-ledd teams that are doing the scale of things that you're doing. Like no, most of the time when you see like these crazy factory ideas, you're thinking, >> oh, you know, lumberjack sized men with these crazy ideas or >> Diego, he's Yeah, Diego is like he hasn't missed a day at the gym, right?
>> No, no, no. All the boys are like that.
They're You have to be so fit to run these robots. Yeah.
>> But no, I'm seriously this is just inspiring because like more women are going to see the work you're doing and also seeing you can be in a party city like Miami and still be building the next innovative company.
>> Yeah. There's so much more to Miami than just a place to get a table at live, you know? I mean, there's a huge part of the of Miami that's just extremely athletic into the outdoors and the boating and the cycling. And there's a third group which is actually building some really cool stuff. So, I'm happy to be redefining what Miami is and what is becoming and attracting more investors and more talent to our city.
>> Love it. Thank you so much for having me. You are awesome.
>> I wish you could stay forever. I I literally I would if you tell me when I can come back and just like work with Diego for a day like legit whether it's like help helping operate one of these things once the next line is up. I will literally come back.
>> Okay, I will definitely tell you that.
>> Like I'm so serious.
>> We're about to start a really cool project. Actually, we want it's our first one. It's Reef, but they're artificial reefs. It's for a hotel in the Bahamas. They're also going to be in really cool shapes cuz it's like a tourist attraction, a diving site for families. So you can like put it under the water and like it'll just be stuck there and fish will >> but it won't be just a traditional reef.
They're still choosing the designs. But like one idea is like a family of bears.
>> The bears also have a lot of spaces for crevices for for >> it. It almost becomes like a tourist attraction.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz of our robots we have extremely high resolution robots, very small layers.
>> We have design freedom previously unachievable. So we can do some very cool things that are functional as reefs but also artistic and exciting for families. So you can come back and print a big shark. Let's do it. Okay. Oh my gosh. You're hired.
>> My first job in Miami.
>> Oh, no way.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
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