#hardware startups

Show, don’t tell: Tips for robotics startups raising a Series B during a downturn

Jason Schoettler Contributor Share on Twitter Jason Schoettler is co-founder and managing partner of Calibrate Ventures. Raising a Series B for any startup is challenging right now, with many VCs pulling back on investments — funding for Series B rounds across all sectors fell 55% in August compared to a year earlier, for example. But raising a Series B for a hardware startup can be even…

Where to Find Hardware Nerds in San Francisco and Silicon Valley

As I travel around the world searching for fellow HW nerds, I’m happy to share my findings with you, dear SolidSmack reader. In this article, I bring you the best events and organizations to check out in the San Francisco Bay area. There more than, perhaps, anywhere, the term “tech” gets conflated with “software“. However, these vetted meetups hold the highest likelihood of being attended by your…

Hands-On With The Kickstarted Bohemian Guitar Company’s ‘Oil Can’ Guitars

In order to put our cash where our hype is we like to take a closer look at Kickstarter products we’ve talked about on the site. Today we have the Bohemian Guitar Company’s “grease can” guitars, a Kickstarter project that raised $54,000 – $20K over their $32,000 goal. The company, based in Georgia, just started shipping their cleverly-designed gitfiddles and I got the chance to attempt one out.

Panel: Navigating the Stages of Building a Hardware Company #hardware #startups #manufacturing #venturecapital

On January 30th, 2019, an impressive concentration of hardware pros could be found at Synapse Product Development‘s downtown Seattle office. Usually, HW people are in the minority at tech events, but not this time. What was the buzz about? Dragon Innovation was there to sponsor a HW startup panel which also included representation from Hackster, Glowforge, and Root Ventures.

Also, there was…

Highlights from the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018

TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin brought together startups and tech enthusiasts from all over Europe November 29-30, 2018. I stopped by to bring you the highlights.

The scale of the event in Berlin, Germany was noticeably smaller than the one in San Francisco, which we covered here. Disrupt San Francisco reported around 7,500 attendees while Disrupt Berlin expected about 2,500. It was also a 2-day…

Open Source Drone Software Startup Auterion Acquires $10M

What would you do if the humble business you owned suddenly got funded by…I don’t know…10,000,000 US Dollars? A lot of options come to mind (a few involving Olympic-sized pools filled with ice cream) but for Auterion – the startup drone software company who actually won said funding – their plan is to solve the problem of incompatibility between drones and the various services they provide.

The…

The Oddball Miraculously Crams a Drum Machine Into A Bouncy Ball

We’ve all had remarkable careers as air drummers at least some point in our lives. And no matter how musically incompetent we think we are, there’s always a beat sitting somewhere deep in our bones just ready to bust out. For folks who want to take their air drumming mastery a step further, the Oddballby Oddball Studios takes your air drummer beats and puts them on tracks you can actually listen…

This Burger-Flipping Robot Assembly Machine is Taking Over San Francisco

While most folks say the best way to make a burger is by hand, a majority of them likely aren’t doing it over and over again on a daily basis. Some people love flipping patties as much as Spongebob Squarepants, but unlike the yellow cartoon sponge, they most likely want more from life than smelling like grease and meat all day.

Creator, a start-up restaurant from San Francisco, aims to change the…