Arduino raises $22M Series B round • Hacker News Board

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#41

Post by evrimoztamur » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

I 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?

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#42

Post by shultays » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

  AI by providing a continuum from hardware to Cloud

How about crypto, it misses the buzzword crypto

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#43

Post by hotstickyballs » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

nylonstrung wrote: post #35

coldpie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeahhhhh. Taking on VC debt is a great way to kill your company. Guess this will buy them a few more years before they start turning the screws.

They didn't take debt— they sold equity in the company. In reality this makes the company MORE financially healthy, while diminishing the payout the founders would get if the company pays dividends or is sold

> sold equity in the company.

> diminishing the payout the founders would get if the company pays dividends or is sold

That’s VC debt

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#44

Post by Ekaros » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #24

coldpie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There 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 pat…

It is not debt, but on other hand anyone investing this pay probably have expectation of return that is higher than a loan would be. And that money must come from somewhere at somepoint...

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#45

Post by bombcar » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

dbrgn wrote: post #34

londons_explore wrote: post #7

Oh :-( 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.

To quote from the article: > After the first $32 million Series B financing received in 2022, “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,” says Arduino’s CEO Fabio Violante.

The words! They are buzzing!

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#46

Post by rwmj » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

evrimoztamur wrote: post #41

I 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…

Why 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?

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#47

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #23

I'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…

[deleted]

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#48

Post by bombcar » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

yard2010 wrote: post #31

tedivm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There 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 pat…

Isn't "raising funds" just a euphemism for taking a loan you don't have to return in cash? Like a loan which is not regulated as a loan

It's not a loan because it doesn't have to be paid back.

But it operates somewhat worse than a loan because the buyer now has some say in how the company is run, and they will want to see a return on their investment eventually.

A loan may be better because as long as the company can service it, the lenders have no say in how the business is run, and they get no additional profit from increased income/profit of the business.

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#49

Post by snarfy » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

tyingq wrote: post #2

Makes 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.

Well, 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 gi…

And it's not even their IDE. They just slapped some AVR compilers into Processing

https://processing.org/

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#50

Post by memefrog » Thu, Sep 07, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #24

coldpie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There 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 pat…

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