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This is What Investors Look for in a Hardware Startup


What Investors look for

Looking to raise funds for your consumer hardware startup? Here's what you should know.

Hardware is hot (or cool! - however you define exciting).

As per data from CB Insights, 2016 was a record year with almost $4.4B invested into consumer hardware across 624 separate deals. Q2 2017 saw nearly 140 deals and $1.2B in funding to consumer hardware startups.

About 56% of the 382 consumer hardware startups that the report analyzed, raised their first funds through crowdfunding, with a median size of about $210,000 - which doesn’t provide enough runway to support manufacturing, sales or marketing costs.

Hardware startups are capital intensive and the continued interest from investors is good news for startups looking to fundraise. But what do investors look for in a hardware startup?