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Aqueduct

YC W23

Pittsburgh, US · Founded 2022 · 1 employees · 3 known investors

Find your way into Aqueduct

10 people in our graph share verified history with the Aqueduct team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.

Chad Packardunlockedknows Matthew Turnshek · together at Formant (overlapped)
×8knows the team · via Formant
knows the team · via Aqueduct

Iliad develops Aqueduct, a node-based procedural material engine with integrated AI capabilities for creating and editing custom textures and physically-based rendering (PBR) materials. The tools serve game developers, 3D artists, and creative professionals working with digital content creation.

Also known as Iliad · Aqueduct

AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareGamingArtificial IntelligenceDesign ToolsUnited States of AmericaAmerica / Canada

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (W23)

Aqueduct was founded in 2022 by Matthew Turnshek.

MTMatthew Turnshek
Matthew TurnshekinFounderMatthew Turnshek founded and leads Iliad.

Investors · 3

Amino CapitalPalo Alto · $100K – $10M
DG Daiwa Ventures
Y CombinatorSan Francisco · $500K

Company profile

researched Aug 2026

Iliad develops tools for creating procedural material graphs and textures for 3D content. Its main product, Aqueduct, is a node-based procedural material engine offered in open early access, which produces fully editable procedural material graphs.

Alongside Aqueduct, Iliad offers a set of diffusion-based tools: Texture Canvas, for creating custom seamlessly tileable textures; Material Generator, which produces PBR (physically based rendering) material maps from a texture; and Reference to Texture, which converts a supplied reference image into a seamless texture. The site also hosts a texture canvas gallery showing example outputs such as stone brick walls, wood grains, foliage, fabrics and metals, and a shared library.

Business model

Iliad provides its tools through a web application with user accounts and a published pricing page, indicating paid access tiers.

Traction

Aqueduct is available in open early access.

▸Full profile — technology, go-to-market

Technology

Iliad combines node-based procedural material graph generation with diffusion-model-driven texture tools. Aqueduct produces material graphs that remain fully editable, while the diffusion tools generate seamlessly tileable textures and derive PBR material maps from a texture or a reference image.

Go-to-market

Iliad distributes its tools directly through its website, where users log in to access Aqueduct and the diffusion tools, and maintains a Discord community channel.

Users creating textures and PBR materials for 3D content.

Compiled by commissioned research from 1 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.

Competitors · 5

by search overlap
Virtuall30 shared keywordsVirtuall is a creative AI operating system for enterprise production, providing a control layer that orchestrates multiple AI models, agents and workflows for generating image, video, 3D and audio content while enforcing brand governance, cost control and asset traceability. It serves studios and enterprise creative, brand and design teams across industries such as marketing, gaming, architecture and product design.
Scenario27 shared keywordsScenario is a creative AI platform that lets teams train custom models on their own art and brand style, then access 600+ image, video, 3D, and audio models to generate on-brand assets. It serves creative teams across industries such as gaming and consumer brands, offering a workspace for creatives, an API for developers, and workflow/agent tools for production at scale.
OpenArt24 shared keywordsOpenArt Worlds is an AI tool that turns a single image or text prompt into a navigable 3D environment, letting users place characters, objects, and lighting and control camera angles. It targets filmmakers, game designers, social media creators, and architects, with export to 3D Gaussian Splat format for tools like Blender and Unreal Engine.
A Cloud Guru24 shared keywordsA Cloud Guru is an online learning platform focused on cloud computing skills, offering certification courses, hands-on labs, practice exams, and live cloud sandboxes for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Linux. It serves individual engineers and enterprise teams building cloud fluency, and was acquired by and integrated into Pluralsight in 2021.
Itch23 shared keywordsThis page is a listing/search results page on itch.io showing games available for the Linux platform, not a company website.

Companies competing with Aqueduct for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.

In the news

Investors pile into Iliad’s €650m deal as corporate supply remains scarceglobalcapital.com · Jul 2026

▸Research sources · 1

primary sources listed

1 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.

Frequently asked questions

What does Aqueduct do?
Iliad builds Aqueduct, a node-based procedural material engine, plus AI texture and PBR material generation tools.
Who founded Aqueduct?
Aqueduct was founded by Matthew Turnshek in 2022.
Who are Aqueduct's investors?
Aqueduct's investors include Amino Capital, DG Daiwa Ventures, Y Combinator.
Where is Aqueduct headquartered?
Aqueduct is headquartered in Pittsburgh, US.