Hardware FYI

🌱 This week’s startup highlights: 1) RoboForce emerged from stealth and raised $10 million in seed funding for a 1.5-meter-tall robot capable of performing tedious, force-intensive tasks like solar panel installation. The company’s robot can achieve 1mm accuracy in fine motor movements and use a spatial AI copilot system, and aims to address critical labor shortages in harsh and hazardous work environments. Notable investors include the Nobel Laureate Myron Scholes, and Carnegie Mellon University. 2) Alta Resource Technologies has raised a $5.1M seed round to recover rare earth metals from electronic waste. Their process allows for the extraction of metals like neodymium, praseodymium, and cerium—key materials for high-end electronics. With the US relying on a single rare earth mine in California, the company's work could allow a small amount of rare earth metals to be produced domestically. 3) FIRE1 , a Dublin-based medtech company, has raised $120 million in Series B funding led by Polaris Partners and Elevage Medical Technologies. The funding will support the rollout of Norm for clinical trials in the US, an implantable sensor placed inside the heart that provides remote monitoring of fluid volume. 4) Altilium Clean Technology has raised $5M in a Series B round from Marubeni Corporation to build the UK’s largest EV battery recycling facility in Teesside. Their goal: a closed-loop supply chain for low-carbon cathode materials. This follows a $21M Series A last year.

Waveguides are transparent materials that channel light using total internal reflection, allowing digital images to transmit through a thin sheet of glass. By etching diffractive gratings to their surface, these waveguides can precisely direct and control the light to create displays users can interpret. Meta's design uses lenses made from a material called silicon carbide, which has a high refractive index allowing for a wider 70-degree field of view. Orion’s Silicone Carbide Wafer (lower left) produces four waveguides per wafer. The two diffraction gratings can be seen on the lower right.

𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗮𝗻 𝗝𝗼𝘀𝗲! Hardware FYI‎ and Cofactr‎‎ will be in the Bay Area before DesignCon to bring together innovative hardware minds for an evening of food, connection, and collaboration. 📅 Tuesday, January 28, 2025 6:00 pm Register for a spot if you are one of the following: - Hardware Engineer - Startup Founder - Industry Innovator - Manufacturing Expert This isn't just another networking event. Have meaningful conversations about scaling hardware companies, navigating supply chains, and solving real industry challenges. Previous dinners have sparked partnerships, solved technical roadblocks, and created lasting connections within the hardware community. 🎟️ Space is limited to 30 seats to ensure quality conversations Apply now - link in the comments below! Selected attendees will receive venue details. #SiliconValley #Engineering #Networking #StartupLife #hardware

We're back with this week's spotlight on exciting job openings for mechanical and electrical engineers! Sponsored: 🔹 Durin New Grad: 🔹 Samsara Mid-Level: 🔹 Machina Labs 🔹 Multiply Labs 🔹 Electric Era Senior to Staff: 🔹 OpenAI 🔹 Apple Internships: 🔹 Samsara 🔹 Starfish Space 🔹 Tesla Explore the latest opportunities in our weekly newsletter. Subscribe and stay updated on hardware job openings

The Analog #113: Teardrop Vias & Grain Direction in Sheet Metal Bending 🔹 Follow along an advanced machining course from MIT for free! Randall Briggs has been publishing lectures from his ongoing course that allows anyone in the world to ‘sit’ the course virtually. This week, his second lecture of the semester explored the evolution of machining—from custom single-purpose machines to standardized CNC systems. 🔹 Our first event for 2025 is in San Jose, CA, on January 28th! Applications are open with limited seats (~30), click to register – hardware engineers, founders, and investors are all welcome. 🔹 Durin, a seed-stage startup working on autonomous drilling for mineral exploration, is hiring in El Segundo, CA. 🔹 RoboForce has emerged from stealth and raised $10 million in seed funding for a 1.5-meter-tall robot capable of performing tedious, force-intensive tasks like solar panel installation.

Happy Monday! This weekend’s highlights include lecture notes on product development, an interesting profit and loss breakdown of a smart poop bag dispenser product, and how a CNC shop operating out of a garage made $88K in 6 months. Read the full deep dive in this week's issue of the Weekend Wire: https://lnkd.in/ezRcmX3c

🌱 This week’s startup highlights: 1) Lumen Orbit (YC S24), a startup aiming to build data centers in space, closed an $11 million seed round amidst intense interest from over 200 VCs valuing the company at $40 million. The company is building modular orbital data centers that connect to large solar panels and use high-bandwidth optical lasers to transmit data to Earth, aiming to achieve multi-gigawatt compute clusters by the end of the decade. The round was led by NFX with participation from Fuse VC and Soma Capital. 2) Backflip, founded in 2022 by former Markforged executives, is building software that turns text, photos, or sketches into 3D-printable designs. Their recent $30 million Series A round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). 3) Swave Photonics has raised $28.3 million to to develop its holographic extended reality (HXR) platform, using the world’s smallest pixels to create high-quality 3D holograms for augmented reality. Their technology aims to overcome traditional AR challenges like cost, size, and visual discomfort, with their approach recently earning a CES Innovation Award for 2025. 4) eVTOL makers raised a combined $11.5B in the last three years, but it hasn’t looked great for some of the major players recently. In late 2024, Lilium filed for bankruptcy after regulatory and battery reliability issues stalled production. A rescue by Mobile Uplift GmbH in December brought new funds to address challenges. Following Lilium's financial recovery, the German eVTOL manufacturer Volocopter has also filed for insolvency to restructure while seeking new investments.

Before the holiday break, Y Combinator released their Request for Startups, a list of ideas that their team is interested in funding for an upcoming batch. There’s an overwhelming interest in hardware and manufacturing, a stark contrast to their bread and butter with SaaS and software startups. An overview of the interest areas for W25: • Public Safety Tech: Ideas around faster emergency response, communication safety, and advanced computer vision • LLMs for Chip Design: LLMs focused on ASIC and FPGA design • AI-Aided Engineering Tools: Next-gen CAD/CAM, CFD, and EDA tools for circuit & chip design • New Space Companies: New business ideas in the modern space era. "As the cost to reach orbit has fallen 10x since 2006, startups can now build and launch satellites with seed funding." • Government Software: AI software to automate work done by the government US-Based Manufacturing

We're back with this week's spotlight on exciting job openings for mechanical and electrical engineers! Sponsored: 🔹 Durin New Grad: 🔹 the LEGO Group 🔹 NVIDIA 🔹 Mainspring Energy Mid-Level: 🔹 Coco 🔹 Corsair 🔹 Skild AI Senior to Staff: 🔹 unspun™ 🔹 Snap Inc. Internships: 🔹 Neuralink 🔹 Locus Robotics 🔹 Meta 🔹 Intuitive Explore the latest opportunities in our weekly newsletter https://lnkd.in/evnTSqtd Stay updated on hardware job openings and sign up for email alerts at jobs.hardwarefyi.com! 🔔

The Analog #112: Rotational-Molded Pickleballs & YC Startup Ideas 🔹 It’s the start of 2025, and we’re kicking off the year with our first event in San Jose, CA, on January 28th! Applications are open with limited seats (~30), click to register in the newsletter. 🔹 Before the holiday break, Y Combinator released their Request for Startups: a list of ideas that their team is interested in funding for an upcoming batch. We wanted to bring it to your attention because there’s an overwhelming interest in hardware and manufacturing, a stark contrast to their bread and butter with SaaS and software startups. 🔹 Durin, a seed-stage startup working on autonomous drilling for mineral exploration, is hiring in El Segundo, CA 🔹 Backflip, founded in 2022 by former Markforged executives, is building software that turns text, photos, or sketches into 3D-printable designs. Their recent $30 million Series A round was led by a16z and NEA. https://lnkd.in/evnTSqtd