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Arduino raises $22M Series B round
- bananapub 3y agowell, that sucks. I will be forever grateful for them helping build and expand and popularise the modern hobbyist embedded world.
- tyingq 3y agoMakes me curious what their revenue trends look like. From the outside, it feels like many people in the space are using the Arduino IDE, but with MCUs they bought from some other vendor.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoWell, way back then, the Arduino IDE was precisely the game changer that made a lot of hobbyists and average people get into embedded systems without much friction or EE background, and not the board based on an Atmega MCU that anyone else could make. Many eons ago before the Arduino came out, I used to have EE labs in university based on the same Atmega chip but using a commercial IDE-compiler, and boy was that a giant PITA as a young buck, having to read dozens of datasheet pages, calculate by hand all the register values just to get a bloody 1 ms PWM timer output on a pin, which never worked the first time and needed an oscilloscope to debug. "Oh, you did everything right, but forgot to flip the bit of the correct pin of the output port in the right registry, have fun debugging it for the next 3 hours while you pull your hair out." And we used "modern" C, not AVR assembly (which is still nice and quite simple to understand once you get the hang of it, don't get me wrong). Sure, as an EE, that was a mandatory right of passage to prep you for a job in the industry, but not something average people would want to do as a hobby. The fact that you can do that with 2 simple lines of code, from an API, from a well documented library, that's well tested and guaranteed to work, without an expensive commercial toolchain and HW debugger, was the game changer for the hobbyist market. But this move feels a bit late in the game for them. They should have done this nearly 10 years ago, but now it feels like they squandered their early lead and became sort of irelevant amongst the sea of RPi, ESP32, STM32 with their own easy to use toolchains and libraries.
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- chpatrick 3y agoHow are they going to make money from it though?
- bananapub 3y agoobviously the Arduino IDE is great, but they sell it for $0 so that doesn't seem very directly relevant to how they 10x this big pile of money for their investors.
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- rollcat 3y ago> Well, the Arduino IDE was precisely the game changer that made a lot of people get into embedded systems, and not the board based on an Atmega MCU that anyone else could make. Interesting. Personally I find the $OFFICIAL_IDE repulsive, and strongly prefer just writing the code in $MY_IDE, with a Makefile on the side. OTOH I find the "branded" hardware attractive: it's a known quality in an ecosystem that I sometimes find complex and confusing, and I greatly appreciate the work they've put into making the whole process more approachable. Of course I have a couple clone boards at hand, but I will buy branded Arduino by default precisely because I instinctively associate the brand with less hassle.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>Personally I find the $OFFICIAL_IDE repulsive, and strongly prefer just writing the code in $MY_IDE, with a Makefile on the side. < Insert famous HN comment, on why Dropbox is a useless business idea, berceuse you can easily achieve that for free with a self hosted FTP server[1] > If you know what a Makefile is, then you're not Arduino's target market, but there are millions of people out there who want to turn a relay ON when some sensor gets too hot for some garage project, without first learning about Makefiles or registers. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- bityard 3y agoMany makers I know of are using PlatformIO these days: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=platformio.platformio-ide https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=platform...
- uxp8u61q 3y agoWhich uses Arduino under the hood.
- ska 3y agoOne option is to use an arduino framework, but it's not the only one.
- dave78 3y agoThere was recently a flareup on HN about PlatformIO trying to make money by charging a fee to vendors to be supported (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36090536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36090536). Maybe Arduino wants in on that. I honestly don't see how such strategies work long-term though. As a former embedded SW engineer, the Arduino IDE seems very toy-like - which is excellent for people just starting out, but not something a company developing an embedded product is likely to use. I think PlatformIO is similar but I have only tried that once. If these companies try to get vendors to pay them to support their boards, or try to start charging users directly, I really think that the hobby community will move on and someone will fork or create their own solution, and the whole cycle will start again.
- Dork1234 3y agoWhat is the difference between PlatformIO and something you use to develop for an Embedded platform? To me it seems PlatformIO is just a wrapper around the same command-line tools used by other companies.
- ska 3y agoIt gives a consistent CLI, which can be wrapped easily by e.g. VScode. It also gives a reasonable cross platform config and library management.
- lexicality 3y agoSounds to me like another nail in the coffin for Arduino as a useful tool for hobbyists. That said I stopped buying Arduinos years ago and started buying super low cost ESPs from China and I think most other people did too so I guess it's not going to be a huge blow
- darkstar999 3y agoHow is that a nail in the coffin?
- candiddevmike 3y agoHow do you have a 100M business selling cheap, niche microcontrollers to hobbyists? They're starting to pursue a subscription model (Arduino Cloud), I'd expect them to shutter products that won't work with the subscription model and require everything else to use it. It's your standard enshitification play.
- sgt 3y agoBy having 10M+ hobbyists that you support and inspire. That's how... easier said than done, but if they play their cards right, it is possible.
- coldpie 3y ago> but if they play their cards right, it is possible. Not with $54M in debt to service. This is a death warrant. I'm sure the execs will make out nicely, though.
- tedivm 3y agoThere isn't any debt to service. Taking funding isn't the same as taking debt (in some ways its worse, in some better), and there's no direct interest or payment they have to make every month like if it was debt. The problem is that they give up ownership (and probably ownership) to people who may have different goals and values. This can lead to enshittification, especially for a company that doesn't have a good path to extreme growth and profits. You also can't discharge ownership in bankruptcy like you can with debt.
- londons_explore 3y agoOh :-( Every time a cool little company gets VC funding, you know that the free and opensource projects will dry up, and before long they'll be making premium high end products and suing anyone who tries to compete.
- londons_explore 3y agoI predict they'll go after microcontroller manufacturers first. "Do you want your dev boards supported by the Arduino Ecosystem? Pay us 10% of revenue, and then we'll talk."
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoI don't doubt that they'll try, but I don't think they have the market position to pull that off anymore, not with ESP32 et al. ascendant. Or maybe I'm just out of touch with that side of the market, hard to tell.
- londons_explore 3y agoA lot of people still program ESP32's with the arduino IDE. And there are a good number of devices on the shelves of stores today which contain the arduino bootloader. It turns out the "point and click and get a working IoT product" tends to outcompete hiring a professional embedded coder to spend months to make something bespoke from scratch. My dumb fridge for example runs on top of the arduino bootloader on an atmel chip - it has the distinctive 1 second startup delay and speaks stk500. And all that chip supports is four temperature sensors, two fans, two door switches and lights, a little 7 seg display and up/down buttons for temperature, a defrost heater, door edge heater, and a relay for the compressor motor.
- Dork1234 3y agoIf it isn't Arduino, then it will be MicroPython/CiruitPython and you won't even need a compiler.
- chomp 3y agoSad. Arduino was my first real jump into microcontrollers. I hate to see them go this way.
- wiremine 3y agoI'm torn on this. I'm the CTO for a small software firm that does a lot if IoT. We've seen a number of startups build their prototypes using Arduino. Historically, there was no clear path to production. So, I think they're listening to some of their customers, and it is a clear opportunity for them. On the other hand, positioning yourself as a hobbyist platform, _and_ a "production-grade" platform is tricky. I really like their entry-level boards for hobby-level things. I hope that continues. Finally, a few thoughts: 1. If you dig into their code, their embedded software has struggled: the architecture is all over the place, the implementation is suspect in some areas, and testing has been weak. Hopefully they back port the new (hopefully improved) code to the hobby hardware. 1. As long as they don't require their cloud, I wish them well in that area. It's a really tough market.
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- rjha 3y agoI have used both Arduino boards and our own hardware layer with AVR toolchains. The main USP of Arduino was a good community (people like and easy-to-follow instructions. The target market of Arduino did not want to look inside the IDE. That is the reason they scored over PIC etc. because they never even talked registers. However, this easy was slapped together in the most unprofessional ways imaginable. IIRC, the SD card code used to have C++ virtual functions when a rock solid library from Chan was available. It was not easy built on a solid core that provided a gradual path to professional setups. It was do-it-and-happy-when-it-works kind of setup. So I am not sure what direction can they take it in with funding. There is a limit on where easy can take you in the Embedded world, especially if you are looking for reliability and performance.
- spott 3y agoAs I see it (from largely an outsider perspective), there are two difficulties with embedded software: 1) a large sensitivity to performance, to the point where higher level languages are difficult to justify the overhead. And 2) it is generally difficult to write software for embedded systems because the peripherals are all over the place. There is no “one framework to rule them all”, so you need to relearn how to do basic tasks for every new system you use. I feel like 1 is getting to be much less of a blocker for a huge variety of applications. Most hobbyists don’t even bother with the dedicated built in “spi” pins, they just do spi bit banging on whatever pins they want to use because they don’t have a performance reason to worry about it. 2 is still an issue, and is largely what arduino was trying to solve (for hobbyists at least), by creating a standardized set of tools and libraries. From that perspective, there is still a lot of work to be done. Modern languages can offer a huge amount of zero cost abstractions for things like HALs, if you can make it easy enough to write the underlying translation layers so you can actually run on the combinatoric explosion of different software options out there. If arduino can make that kind of thing possible, I would assume they could make inroads into the professional world.
- dimal 3y agoCue up the announcement two years from now about the "exciting" news about joining X megacorp, where nothing will change for users, except things will be better for some reason. Then cue the announcement two years after that where everything does indeed change for users for the worse. Then cue the inevitable open source fork...
- hackernewds 3y agoWhy so pessimistic?
- dimal 3y agoVCs need their exit. That's why they buy in. That's how the system works.
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- trollied 3y agoGiven it all started in 2005, I'm very surprised to see they're raising capital. I guess I incorrectly assumed they would have been very profitable by now with such a large user base & number of units shipped. 18 years is a long time. The market has moved on significantly from when they first started (Raspberry Pi having launched things like the Pico etc), and there is a large amount of competition, so I do wonder if their growth aims are realistic.
- jes5199 3y agoRaspberry Pi has found enough use in industry that it’s gotten hard for hobbyists to find boards. Maybe someone convinced Arduino that there are commercial applications
- _fizz_buzz_ 3y agoSupply has increased significantly in the last couple months. Rpis are now readily available. https://rpilocator.com/?instock https://rpilocator.com/?instock
- eternityforest 3y agoI wish more things WOULD just use an Arduino in commercial applications. It would be great for right to repair.
- crote 3y agoA big problem is that they didn't really innovate. Companies like Adafruit, Sparkfun, and Pimoroni leapfrogged their hardware products, and eventually ended up developing their own ecosystems when it turned out that the Arduino IDE was more of a liability than a boon. They were a no-brainer in 2005-2010, but why buy from Arduino in 2023 when you can get a newer product with more features at a lower price from their competitors?
- evrimoztamur 3y agoI find it very ironic (in a funny way) how the comments for funding rounds always have a sense of disappointment on Hacker News. We are all reluctantly expecting the worst when private equity and venture capital get involved despite being under the roof of a VC, in essence. I am surprised like another commenter that Arduino has to raise money, on the other hand. I wish it was a bit clearer on how this money ties into their strategy, are they planning to fund R&D, marketing, or manufacturing. What will Arduino look like in two years, and which stick are we getting enshittified?
- rwmj 3y agoWhy not be negative? They're not being given $22m for funsies. The backers will want a 10x return, so somehow Arduino must now raise their value to $220 million (actually $540 million, since they raised $54m in total). Where's that money coming from?
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- evrimoztamur 3y agoI understand your concerns, I am just pointing out the general dissatisfaction raised here and the expectation of enshittification being the default. I would also like to point out that you are extrapolating a bit too hard. The claim that backers will want a 10x return is not necessarily correct, nor are the examples of 220/540m valid from a valuation perspective. There are PE firms which do not seek such exorbitant returns. Without having eyes on Arduino's financials, it's hard to say that the growth expectations are as noted. As for the valuation, the implied post-money (i.e. after-investment) valuation depends on for what percentage of equity the 54m was offered for (where the implied post-money valuation would be 54m divided by the percentage, e.g. 108m with 54m paid for 50% of ordinary shares). Other factors such as preferences etc. impact this too. I wouldn't be so eager to get mad, that's all. I am still hopeful for Arduino's future and hope that they put the capital to good use (instead of '10x'ing it).
- 3y ago
- shultays 3y agoAI by providing a continuum from hardware to Cloud How about crypto, it misses the buzzword crypto
- shapefrog 3y agoInvestors (in the arena) already have a portfolio stuffed full of losing crypto and web 3.0 plays - they cant handle any more exposure unless you sprinkle some Ai sugar on top.
- blitzar 3y agoWant to know more about how the funds will be put to good use? A major chunk will be invested to further strengthen the R&D team based in Turin, Italy, with the goal to grow enterprise application libraries and the Arduino Cloud for Business with more integrations and embedded AI features. Fools and their money are easily parted, even easier if you slap "Ai", "Enterprise" and "Cloud" in the pitch.
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- mycodendral 3y agoIn this case, dilution is not the solution :(
- caned 3y agoIncidentally, and naively, I have to ask: Is there a business model that can promise customers a product that's immune to eventual usurpation? It's a hidden cost to build your world around a product only to see it turn into pay-to-play. What is the antidote to this trend?
- frollo 3y agoNot only the steps do to this properly would probably kill most companies, but investors would avoid such company like the plague. They'd basically need to lose all protection on their product, making it a de facto open source (note that there are companies operating on open source stuff, but they actually make money out of the things they don't open source - such as "pro version" or know how). Plus, investors value the pool of recurring customers far more than basic cash flow or such (because you can squeeze them more) and the next best thing is customers you can make recurring customers by moving your product to a subscription model.
- mikeortman 3y ago"Finally, we will use the additional funds to accelerate go-to-market initiatives and customer support in selected areas." Anytime I see the business speak 'accelerate go-to-market initiatives', the company is at its end-game. Any time a leader has to call that out, they are admitting they need to spend a substantial sum of money to solve a problem a small group of kids in a garage can do with some Red Bull.
- zemo 3y ago> Another consistent part is earmarked to help Arduino grow even more in the US, where we recently opened an office in Austin, TX and bolstered our presence in Chicago, IL. Oh! I want to hear more about what they’re doing in Chicago since I’m in Chicago.
- lionkor 3y agoMaybe their AI Cloud for Business product
- LandoCalrissian 3y ago"This investment will allow us to further fuel our transformational platform initiative for professional customers, lowering the barriers to entry in IoT and AI by providing a continuum from hardware to Cloud" That entire sentence makes me want to jump off a bridge.
- lionkor 3y agoI think the only missing keyword of failing/irrelevant businesses is "subscription"
- wildekek 3y agoArduino is in the lifecycle stage where they need to accelerate extraction. Unfortunate for some maybe, but as a hobbyist, the ESP hardware and software offerings are miles ahead anyway.
- Racing0461 3y agoThat sucks.
- frank_bb 3y ago[dead]
- kriro 3y agoGood news. I think some ESP32 or RISC-V or similar player will soon push a competitor to Arduino IDE because I think the two things to onetize are the IDE ecosystem and the Arduino brand recognition. My prediction is they'll start by focusing more ion "enterprise Arduino" and later try to somehow monetize the IDE ecosystem (priority treatment for your arch if you pay the low number of X$/year).
- devwastaken 3y agoInvest in platformio and other independent projects that actually advance the embedded world.
- yilugurlu 3y agoWow, I came to see the comments and saw mbanzi answering, and ohh, boy, everyone is hammering him. He genuinely tries to address concerns and questions, but there are many comments with plain intentions to create a flame. Good job on keeping a cool head and explaining the same thing repeatedly. Congratulations also. Getting here and raising a significant amount of money is never easy.
- martin_a 3y agoOkay, so Arduino is probably done at this point and we'll just see its downfall. Which leads me to the question: Is there an IDE/language that is as easy as that of the Arduino IDE? PlatformIO is often mentioned, but I don't speak C/C++ and am not really into learning it.
- eternityforest 3y agoI have a very hard time imagining the Arduino language going away soon, even if anything happened to the company (I don't know anything about the business world, no idea what's going on with them, seems like they're making some cool new stuff). The community will maintain it. Pretty sure the more interesting implementations aren't even by Arduino (doesn't Espressif do theirs themselves?). I wouldn't be surprised if long term, we started seeing an Arduino competitor in Rust, the hobby space is the perfect place to start something like that, but for now, I would think Arduino is safe... Also, you already know C++. Maybe not C, but that's OK, because everything a hobbyist needs to pay attention to is C++. Arduino is just some libraries on top of C++. A really nice and portable set of libraries, with a really cool and easy build process, but not the only set of libraries. PlatformIO is pretty nice. But there is something easier than Arduino. ESPHome. It's a YAML declarative kind of thing. Not as general as Arduino but for what it does, it's amazing. Vastly easier, clearer, and just generally nicer than just writing code, especially when it comes with so many nice features like logging, a web server, and an amazingly reliable LAN API you can call from Python. They even have OTA updates. Right now it's got a few missing things, like light sleep, but I suspect it's going to cover a lot of Arduino use cases. They have a web dashboard written in Python you run from the CLI.
- martin_a 3y agoThank you so much, I'll make sure to have a closer look at ESPHome!
- farialima 3y agoThe business of VCs is to take risk. VCs _know_ that 8 out of 10 of their investment will return zero, zitch, nada. They just expect one of of 10 to make it even -- and another one to make it 20x. So that doesn't mean that Arduino is on anything great: it just means it has been able to convince VCs that there's _some probability_ that they will make it big. But the probability of doing something big is still very low... ( In fact a VC once told me that, 3 months after investing - i.e. a few board meetings max - he already knows if the company will succeed or not. And in 8 out of 10, he will just do the figuration until failure - at best, buy for cents on the dollar)