Hardware by the Numbers: Startups

Chapter 1. Hardware by the Numbers

Last year, we started our Hardware by the Numbers trend report by looking at the origin story of hardware startups. We charted the rise of the Maker Movement as a foundational shift, and examined how the awareness it brought to the possibilities of “hacking the physical world” had inspired thousands to come together and form hardware communities across the world. These communities resided in an ever-increasing number of hackerspaces, and became ecosystems that spawned “Maker Pros.” Many of these Maker Pros went on to start hardware companies, moving from projects to full-fledged products that were to be sold to a mainstream audience.

In January 2014, The Economist declared a “Cambrian moment” for startups, stating that there were approximately 140,000 globally. While there is no canonical “taxonomy” of the increasingly large startup ecosystem, at the topmost level it is reasonable to split into “Hardware” and “Software.” Many hardware startups are fond of saying that they’re really software companies, or that the hardware is merely a tool for gathering data, but the skill set and capital requirements required to successfully bring a physical product to market set these companies apart from those that are purely focused on building software, regardless of the business model that they select.

There is no authoritative source for the number of hardware startups launched in any given year, but estimates using AngelList data seem to indicate that ...