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Arduino raises $22M Series B round

blog.arduino.cc

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Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#131

Post by mbanzi »

crote wrote: post #111
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you got it all wrong. VC funding makes things cool because they could afford to loose money and make product better. Enshittification starts when they stop receive VC funding like reddit or docker. Reddit was founded 18 years ago and for the first 10 years it was good because they don't have any pressure to make money.

You seem to forget that some businesses exist before VC funding. Arduino started out as an open-source project, with further development funded by the sale of physical hardware. They did not need tens of millions of VC funding for that, and they independently developed the "cool stuff" people here care about. Unlike most startups seen here, they were not selling stuff at a loss in the hope of conquering the world and…

users, especially beginners, like consistency. So you call that "stagnation" I call that "avoid adding stuff that people don't really need". We make more than 100 different products so we haven't stagnated at all.

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#132

Post by gary_0 »

mbanzi wrote: post #101
frollo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Arduino's origin and first history this is especially depressing. Good old Adriano is now well and buried.

Hi (co founder of Arduino here) Good old Arduino is still here, we're still releasing a ton of tools for the community, we're still innovating every day. We're using most of the funds to develop our professional offering. I believe this is a natural progression for companies like us. Our investors leave free to work on whatever technology and let us open source anything we feel can contribute to the community. They n…

Don't waste time disagreeing with people on social media, just prove them wrong by doing the right thing. People are really downhearted by how things have turned out in the tech industry, but maybe someday we will point to Arduino as one of the companies who turned that around. Good luck!

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#133

Post by hackernewds »

dimal wrote: post #25

Cue 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...

Why so pessimistic?

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#134

Post by zemo »

> 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.

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#135

Post by jazzyjackson »

mbanzi wrote: post #101
frollo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Arduino's origin and first history this is especially depressing. Good old Adriano is now well and buried.

Hi (co founder of Arduino here) Good old Arduino is still here, we're still releasing a ton of tools for the community, we're still innovating every day. We're using most of the funds to develop our professional offering. I believe this is a natural progression for companies like us. Our investors leave free to work on whatever technology and let us open source anything we feel can contribute to the community. They n…

I believe in mentioning origins the parent is referencing your unceremonious fork of the Wiring project

The Arduino corporation has been a great benefit to open source but it's also a classic trope of an advisor taking credit (and profits) for his students' work.

http://arduinohistory.github.io/

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#136

Post by hackernewds »

rwmj wrote: post #46
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?

Raise their value by*

They're worth more than the money they raise. Unless they passed on 100% of the company (which they didn't)

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#137

Post by Workaccount2 »

mbanzi wrote: post #126
yard2010 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And enshitification! You forgot enshitification

Actually we're not going down that path at all. we are still doing the same things we were doing before. we have no plans for "enshittifying" our business model

You're just going to put yourself in a bad spot chasing comments around online.

YOU are not going down that path.

But investors are now the ones shaping the paths.

Arduino is hardly the first company to take on VC money. Everyone here is intimately familiar with how it always plays out, and the dynamics that will force around even the most pure hearted leader.

It's best not to say anything, you are only going to look foolish trying to explain to a bunch of veteran tech heads how "This time its different!".

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#138

Post by jazzyjackson »

mbanzi wrote: post #110
Dork1234 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't Arduino, then it will be MicroPython/CiruitPython and you won't even need a compiler.

Arduino is supporting the official MicroPython project and has released ports for a number of boards in addition to tools like a simple MicroPython IDE and a GUI installer.

True, which is to say they are a competitor with alternate toolchains

If I get a board with an Arm0 chip and want to flash it with micropython, Arduino is not the only game in town (not even my first choice by a long shot, ymmv)

With the lower power AVR chips, Arduino's only competitor was the project it was forked from, Wiring - any other embedded toolchains were not even trying to reach the casual hobbyist, the Arduino IDE dominates that niche.

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#139

Post by chasd00 »

londons_explore wrote: post #62
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

A 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 atm…

> 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.

Setting up an embedded toolchain and development/debug workflow from scratch is so tedious. No wonder Arduino (and Micropython) has had so much success. I write Micropython for flight controllers in the High Power Rocketry hobby. I get a lot of snide remarks from the other people doing embedded coding but my stuff runs just fine and i can get to a blinking LED (the helloworld of embedded) on a new board in ..seconds typically.

Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round

#140

Post by Brusco_RF »

mbanzi wrote: post #123
Brusco_RF wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if we could just somehow fit "web3" or "as a service" in that sentence

co founder of Arduino here) actually I hate web3 I think it's a pile of bullshit and it's slowly fading away... We've never been interested in that. We do sell services but we try to avoid bullshit terms like "servitization"

Since I've got you, allow me to apologize for all the knee-jerk cynics in this thread. I trust you will continue to ship great product and that your incentives will remain aligned with those of your users.

Just pinky promise me that you won't make Arduino IDE a subscription :)

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