YC for Hardware

[pcmonk]

I'm a bit out of the loop on hardware startups, but has YC funded many successful hardware startups? The only one I've heard of is Pebble.

Lowering the barrier to hardware startups is an awesome thing, of course. Hardware has a greater potential to directly impact lives at this point than software. There's tremendous software power locked up in the small, awkward-to-use computing devices we call phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers.

[beambot]

Pebble, Boosted, Cruise, Double Robotics, Pantelligent, Thalmic, UPower, Helion, Terravion, SoundFocus, SwapBox, Amulyte, Coin, IxiPlay, TrueLink, Estimote, Senic, ... <there are more>

[jasondc]

Boosted Boards is another one: http://boostedboards.com/

[spike021]

I believe FiveStars is another hardware one, if you count NFC cards (or whichever tech they're using) as hardware.

[edmack]

Bellabeat

[fudged71]

BufferBox

[anujdeshpande]

I read it twice to see if there was any mention of the word 'Shenzhen'. It's difficult to not keep that in the loop, for a hardware startup anywhere in the world. Even SF.

[hugs]

I make robots in Chicago and sell them on Tindie. My top two competitors are in Finland and Japan. Yes, I hear Shenzhen is crazy awesome, but try not to let location dominate your world view of what is easy or difficult. Making a good hardware product is difficult, no matter where you make it.

[shashanksamala]

The resources listed here are geared for prototyping that allows rapid iteration of designs and ideas. From electronics prototyping (Tempo Automation) to mechanical (Fictiv). Having been to Shenzhen for manufacturing, it is absolutely great once you get to large volume - you can't beat the robust ecosystem anywhere. For initial runs of designs (quantity 1-10 of something), TIME is absolutely key: dealing with Shenzhen takes extensive communication and long lead times for each production run that a startup or even a big company can't afford.

[sama]

stay tuned.

[anandhv]

Anyone have experience visiting Shenzen? Advice on making the most from a first visit is being discussed here. Would be awesome if anyone could share their tips. http://forum.upverter.com/t/first-trip-to-shenzen-what-shoul...

[dmritard96]

Skipped on YC for this reason ;)

[fown9]

I hope this is the start of US bringing manufacturing back to the States. There needs to be a hardware alley in silicon valley, much like the hardware alley in Shenzhen. For one thing, China is still a communist government that is authoritarian and ignores environmental pollutions (to the world). It also ignores human rights, supports dictators in Africa, and props up totalitarian government in Russia. These are good reasons to not do business with China.

[lnanek2]

Interested hardware startups should be sure to check out Wearable World as well: http://www.wearableworld.co/

They have a similar focus on hardware, great numbers re the percent of each class that gets funded, and have had some big successes like the Skully AR-1 intelligent motorcycle helmet: http://www.skully.com/

WW recently toured the AQS facility in Fremont where a lot of well known products are being made like Makerbot and the Lift Labs tremor defeating spoon, and class members get frequent introductions to everyone from investors to Perkins offering billing for law services only on funding. It has been a pretty kickass program so far.

[trsohmers]

Is there any interest in (fabless) semiconductors? Traditionally thought as ridiculously capital intensive, there are a lot of new developments that have brought the time and costs involved down dramatically... My experience trying to fundraise for one shown there are a lot of misconceptions and (10-15 year) old ideas in the silicon valley investment space regarding fabless semi.

[super_sloth]

Very interesting.. Do tell. What kind of misconceptions are there and how have they changed?

I still labour under the assumption that NREs make doing anything like that _extremely_ expensive.

[trishume]

This technology exists? If it does I'm super interested.

If you have a link to a source that explains how this works that would be awesome.

Edit: I misinterpreted the definition of fabless. This comment makes no sense.

[madengr]

Cadence is only $1E6 maintenance/seat/year?

[TheMakeA]

Are any of these resources available for anyone who isn't already a YC founder? Does that make sense?

Wouldn't it be valuable to give interested folks who aren't yet in YC a place to do their prototyping, get discounts, and help, and then use it as lead gen for the next batch?

Think of all the companies that could exist but don't because they don't have access to these resources.

[seddona]

We (https://circuithub.com, YC W2012) are offering special terms to YC co's but we might be able to help you out too. Drop us an email at [email protected] :-)

[bravo22]

What YC is doing is bundling discounts on PCB prototyping, and 3D printed parts. The rest of the offerings are further down the stack (testing, RF, etc.) so the only thing you would be missing as a non-YC company trying to build a prototype to get into YC is discounts.

If you are hand assembling your prototypes then you only have PCB fabrication costs, which for a 2 to 4 layer board should be about $500 max for your protos (1 week turn). That should be doable for most start-ups, even if they need 3-4 spins.

[anandhv]

This is a great question. On the softer side, coincidentally we launched our HW startup founder Q&A today. A few dozen founders (YC and otherwise) have graciously agreed to answer questions from aspiring founders. Post them here: http://forum.upverter.com/c/startup-questions

[dthal]

That makes complete sense, especially since you are not going to get in to YC as a hardware startup without a functioning prototype.

[minimaxir]

Wait, why is Tilt on the list of startups helping out with hardware expertise? Aren't they a crowdfunding company?

https://www.tilt.com

[npkarnik]

A lot of the very recent, surprising successes in hardware (Oculus, Pebble) were crowdfunded (specifically for those, Kickstarted). I would go as far to say that using a premier crowdfunding platform to test the market may be the best, lowest risk way to validate a hardware idea. Or at least crowdfunding lowers the barrier for hardware success from "damn near impossible" to "really really hard."

[ajaymehta]

Less with hardware-specific expertise, more with crowdfunding, pre-sales, and bringing a product to market. Many highly-successful new hardware project launches have been powered by Tilt over the past year, to name a few: Navdy, Lytro Illum, Whistle GPS, and Eero (yesterday).

(These were all on the Tilt/Open platform: https://open.tilt.com/)

[taylorwc]

Indeed. But crowdfunding has opened up a new channel for hardware startups: preorders. It makes developing a hardware product, which used to be very difficult and take a lot of up-front investment, much more accessible. It's still difficult (see all of the infinitely-delayed crowdfunded projects), but has been getting steadily easier over the past few years. Crowdfunding serves as nondilutive financing to the startups and can also signal market validation to future investors. It is a very important part of the chain.

[lacixodarap]

As others have noted, the pre-order route is often the best go to market strategy for new hardware companies, even if they have already raised a round. The buzz, evangelist community they build, feedback they receive, and the social proof they gather is often of a more lasting benefit than the pure pre-sales revenue. As others have already noted, Tilt has powered many of the recent massive hardware product launches that are going live on their own sites. More examples on https://open.tilt.com/preorders

[podingx]

Crowdfunding / pre-orders is definitely part of the expected business process for HW startups to launch these days.

As the first pre-order platform, Celery has powered successes like Pebble and Boosted Boards and helped them get to the next stage of their business.

The transformation over the past few years has been unreal and today is such an exciting time to be a HW startup. We personally can't wait to see what kinds of HW companies emerge next.

[HackerGarth]

Yeah seems like a bit of a misfit. Check out Celery (https://www.trycelery.com/) for taking HW pre-orders. They also came out of YC. I believe they power pre-orders for guys like Pebble, August, Lockitron, Meta and Coolest Cooler etc.

[NextPerception]

As a mechanical engineer who works in this area and already follows hacker news due to colliding interests, this is very exciting.

[anujdeshpande]

An interesting thing that YC could do for hardware startups is provide discounted copies or license servers for some of the most commonly required but exorbitant softwares : Altium, Solidworks, Autodesk inventor among others.

[dthal]

>and we don’t shy away from expensive hardware--we’ve funded companies building things like nuclear reactors and rockets, which will require hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to succeed

How does this make sense for YC to do?

[taylorwc]

I'd guess that it's part of a diversified approach. Yes, they are capital intensive, but YC isn't the one who will be investing the hundreds of millions, and if one of these is successful, then I'd say it's likely to be hugely successful and a worthwhile return for YC.

[robwormald]

This can't come soon enough. I'm helping out on a hardware 'startup' (though I guess we don't really use that term) - coming from software its an incredibly challenging realm to work in.

Simply getting a functional prototype without easy access to a 3d printer, $$$ in compiler licenses for BT stacks, freakin custom batteries, etc etc.

Our thing: https://www.fitguard.me/

[FD3SA]

Hi Rob, just saw FitGuard for the first time and it's a phenomenal idea.

I'd recommend getting in touch with motorcycle helmet manufacturers (particularly MotoGP and WSBK sponsors) because concussions are a huge issue in motorcycle racing. As your site states, concussion severity is very abstractly diagnosed without data, and your product can make a big difference. The doctor has a tough time deciding whether the athlete is fit to race if he's had a crash and a concussion, and it ultimately comes down to a qualitative decision made by the rider and doctor. Data can definitely help save lives here.

If I have time for the track this season, I'll definitely sign up as a tester. I've never had a concussion, but I sure as hell would want to know how fast my head decelerates after a crash before getting back on the bike.

Good luck, and cheers on a great idea.

[aknalid]

Neat. What kind of a sensor is it using? Also, why IG instead of Kickstarter?

[aceperry]

Sounds great! Question I have is, are these services only available to yc companies? What about startups that are not a part of yc?

[jfb]

I would love to start a hardware startup (I even have an idea!) but I have no idea how to assess the feasibility of my idea, or how to hire h/w engineers. And it's not a billion dollar idea, so maybe it's not in the YC wheelhouse, but I sure as hell think it'd be fun.

[swamp40]

Are there any new advantages or opportunities for Bolt portfolio companies?

[cpg]

This adds to the already exciting hardware situation.

I'm interested in the personal media/storage/app server space!

If you are hardware startup founder material and are interested, please get in touch.

[spiritplumber]

Do I qualify? http://www.robots-everywhere.com The article is scant on details about who do I talk to.

[zhanjie]

Appreciate！I’m doing a hardware startup now,and I believe some areas in YC's RFSs will be solved better with a software&hardware model.

[yousifa]

This is wonderful! Can't wait to see what future batch companies look like

[icki]

From first paragraph: Bolt’s partners and engineering stuff

*i think you meant staff

[oldpond]

No mention of open hardware. Definitely a market there.

[physcab]

Thats horrible, but I don't see where it says Lockitron. If you thought Lockitron Bolt, I think thats different from the Bolt they were talking about.. https://www.bolt.io/