Arduino 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.
Arduino raises $22M Series B round
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Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#152Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
There 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 ). 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 develo…
What 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.
It gives a consistent CLI, which can be wrapped easily by e.g. VScode. It also gives a reasonable cross platform config and library management.
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#154I 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?
They need more than that - they raised $22M but only for a portion of the company so presumably at a valuation of multiples of that. To get a 10x valuation it may have to become a unicorn.
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does the compatibility go? I guess it's trivial to setup a dev enclv using ooen source ide and toolchain so we don't have to use their ide.
Supported fully by the Arduino framework. Working with them using PlatformIO in vscode is really nice and streamlined.
Thanks, that's good to know!
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#156Cue 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?
VCs need their exit. That's why they buy in. That's how the system works.
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#157Oh :-( 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.
Man I want to shake the hand of the person or AI that wrote that.
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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."
Hi (co founder of Arduino here) We're not doing any of that. Our partnerships based on products and whatever processor is the most useful for what we're trying to build. We're mostly working on robust industrial products that maintain the ease of use of the Arduino framework and we sell those to enterprises. very simple
pinky promise ;)
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So... The next versions of the arduino SDK will require a subscription and internet connection to work? (The company is hosted at the UK, isn't it? If it's so, add some invasive spying and selling your data to the list.)
No point to do that. Arduino the platform should remain widely popular among hobbyists; this makes it an easy choice when they have to produce something more professional.
But professionals have different requirements, and are willing to pay for tools that work well. Opening up a professional channel only makes sense if it's buttressed by a large ecosystem outside, with the pressure to keep using Arduino, because it's well-known, hardware is tried and true, hiring is easy, etc.
So, if anything, Arduino the company now has more incentives to make Arduino widely accessible among kids, students, hobbyists, etc.
Re: Arduino raises $22M Series B round
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this likely. In professional environments no one uses the Arduino IDE. Hobbyist projects don't move the needle in chip sales.
> In professional environments no one uses the Arduino IDE I disagree. In companies with an embedded software team, no. But in companies where software isn't a focus of what the company does, there are plenty of bits of arduino code shipped on millions of devices. For example, my Beko branded fridge (they sell 3 million fridges per year). And my unbranded motion-sensitive security light.
And this is where the brand comes in: "let's try to do it in-house this time, instead of hiring those embedded-mercenaries again. Arduino was originally designed for people even more clueless than us"
Arduino had more impact at making people aware that tinkering with controllers might be fun (or profitable) than the actual amount of tinkering with Arduinos (or clones) suggests. Aiming for that "not the core job description" subset of professionals seems like a very good match.