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GrabCAD, a specialist in open-source CAD software, has netted $4.2 million in new funding from its existing VC backers. Plus, David Skok, the general partner with one of those backers, Matrix Partners, has joined GrabCAD’s board. The news was outlined in a blog post on Thursday by GrabCAD president Hardi Meybaum. Skok has some CAD cred: He is on the board of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks, a maker of 3-D CAD (or computer-aided design) software. Engineers use this kind of software to design products on-screen.

This cash influx shows that investors believe the open-source CAD model has legs. Other open-source CAD entries include SourceForge’s FreeCAD project and Cademia. And CAD is starting to come to the cloud as well. Autodesk, the CAD market leader, fields a cloud-based CAD effort called AutoCAD WS.

All the investors this time out also participated in an earlier June 2011 funding round of $1.1 million. Other GrabCAD investors include Atlas Venture; NextView Ventures; John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks; Jon Stevenson, a former executive with PTC; (s pmtc) and Andy Payne, who co-founded Open Market. GrabCAD was one of 12 Boston-area TechStars last year.

The new funding round will be used to staff up the Cambridge, Mass.–based company, which has job listings posted for a UX/UI engineer, a software architect and a senior software engineer, according to the GrabCAD website.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user 401K