AN-081 Funding · cluster
Hardware Startups by Funding Stage (From Bootstrapped to Public)
Hardware startups by stage: 219 index companies sorted into bootstrapped, seed, Series A to D+, public and undisclosed, with median disclosed raise.
by the HardwareMap editors4 min read
Contents
Hardware startups by stage, in the HardwareMap index as of REV 26.09: 4 bootstrapped, 6 seed, 22 Series A, 32 Series B, 35 Series C, 30 at Series D or later, 5 public by named round and 85 with no named round. This note shows the median disclosed raise for each bucket and the largest companies in each. It sits under hardware startup funding.
Each stage link opens the live index filtered to that bucket, so the lists stay current between REVs.
How the index sorts hardware startups by stage
A company's stage comes from the last round named in a public source. The rules are mechanical:
- A round containing "seed" is Seed. "Series A" and "Series A2" are Series A. "Series B" is Series B, "Series C" and "Series C+" are Series C.
- "Series D" through "Series G", "Growth" and "Pre-IPO" are Series D+.
- "IPO" and "SPAC merger" are Public.
- No named round and zero outside capital is Bootstrapped. No named round otherwise is Undisclosed.
"Raised" is the total disclosed capital to date, not the last round. Medians use only companies with a disclosed figure, and the "with disclosed raise" column gives the sample. Team counts are LinkedIn estimates. We never estimate a missing raise or infer a valuation.
Reading the table top to bottom, three things change at each step. The median total raise roughly triples from Series A to Series B and nearly triples again to Series C. The median team roughly doubles from Series A to Series B and again to Series C. And the category mix shifts: consumer products dominate seed, robotics leads Series A, and silicon leads Series B and C. That last shift reflects cost structure. A chip company needs a tape-out before it can sell anything, so it raises large rounds early, while a consumer device can reach revenue on a smaller budget. The four bootstrapped companies are the far end of that logic.
Bootstrapped and seed-stage hardware startups
Ten companies sit at the earliest end. The six seed companies are small, median 25 people, and mostly consumer products: smart telescopes from Vaonis, AI glasses from Brilliant Labs, a podcast recording kit from Nomono. Lumai is the exception, an optical computing company in Oxford with the largest seed total at $13.7 million.
The four bootstrapped companies are older, founded between 1997 and 2020, and sell to makers and enthusiasts. Prusa Research builds 3D printers in Prague. Adafruit Industries sells electronics kits from New York. Flipper Devices funded its multi-tool from preorders and sales. Their model works when each batch can be paid for by the one before it. For how the first priced money works, read how hardware startups raise a seed round.
Series A and Series B hardware startups
Series A is where robotics concentrates: 7 of 22 Series A companies are robotics, the largest category share at that stage. The median total is $33.2 million, but the spread is wide. Apptronik ($968 million) and Proxima Fusion ($664 million) raised far more than the rest while still at Series A by name; the next largest, SiPearl, has $152 million. Below them, most Series A companies have raised $10 million to $60 million.
Series B is the stage where chips take over: 11 of 32 Series B companies are silicon, led by MatX at $605 million. All 32 have a disclosed figure, the only bucket with full coverage. The median total is $106.2 million and the median team about 135 people, about three times the Series A median raise and nearly double its team.
Series C and later hardware startups
Series C is the largest named bucket, with 35 companies and a median total of $289 million. Silicon again leads by count, 12 of 35. Humanoid robots hold the top two places: Figure AI at $1.85 billion and Neura Robotics at $1.66 billion. Every Series C company in the index is private.
Series D+ companies are the oldest of the venture-stage buckets, median founding year 2015, and the largest, median 433 people. Tenstorrent leads at $3.02 billion. The mix spreads across chips, autonomy, health wearables, energy storage, defense drones and space transport. At this stage crossover funds and asset managers join the cap table; the deep tech VC firms roundup shows which ones.
Public and undisclosed-stage hardware startups
Five companies reached public markets through a recorded IPO or SPAC merger. Another 18 are public by status but have no named round in their record, so they sit in the undisclosed bucket, along with private companies that report rounds by amount only.
The undisclosed bucket holds the largest totals in the index: Waymo at $27.3 billion as an Alphabet subsidiary, Rivian at $24.2 billion, and Anduril Industries at $11.4 billion. Defense companies cluster here, 8 of the 11 in the index, because their rounds are often reported by amount and investor rather than by letter. The missing label is a gap in public naming, not in funding: 74 of the 85 have a disclosed figure.
Continue with Bootstrapped Hardware Startups (Yes, They Exist) and Acquired Hardware Startups: Who Bought Whom.
Frequently asked questions
How many hardware startups are at the seed stage?
Six companies in the HardwareMap index are at seed by last named round as of REV 26.09: Lumai, Nomono, Brilliant Labs, Vaonis, OpenBCI and Ecozy. Their median total disclosed raise is $5.3 million. The count is low because the index lists companies with a product and a public record, and most hardware companies reach that point after their seed round.
How much has a typical Series A hardware startup raised?
The median Series A company in the index has raised $33.2 million in total disclosed capital, across 21 companies with a figure. The range is wide, from $6.7 million to $968 million, because a few companies such as Apptronik and Proxima Fusion raised very large rounds while still calling them Series A. Totals include all earlier rounds.
Why are so many hardware startups listed as undisclosed stage?
85 of 219 companies have no named round letter in public sources. Some report rounds by amount only. Some are subsidiaries, such as Waymo, or are public companies whose listing is not recorded as a round, 18 in all. The undisclosed bucket still holds disclosed raise figures for 74 of its 85 companies, so funding is known even where the stage label is not.
Can a hardware startup succeed without venture funding?
Four index companies report zero outside capital: Prusa Research, Adafruit Industries, Flipper Devices and Panic. All sell consumer or maker products with short build cycles and direct sales, so customer revenue funds each production batch. That route is harder for products that need years of research, certification or factory capital before the first sale, which describes most robotics, energy and aerospace companies.
HardwareMap updates each company's stage when a new round is named. Browse any company's datasheet from the tables above to see its full record.
The index
All 219 startups, filterable by category, hub, stage and funding.