{"id":161,"date":"2015-08-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/2015\/08\/12\/how-autodesk-is-helping-incubators-birth-a-new-industrial-revolution\/"},"modified":"2015-08-12T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T08:00:00","slug":"how-autodesk-is-helping-incubators-birth-a-new-industrial-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.autodesk.com\/inthefold\/how-autodesk-is-helping-incubators-birth-a-new-industrial-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"How Autodesk is Helping Incubators Birth a New Industrial Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Mike Geyer, Autodesk Director of Evangelism, & Emerging Technology<\/em><\/p>\n

Hardware is hot \u2014 and poised to get hotter.  Venture capital investment in connected device hardware startups reached approximately $1.48B in 2014, more than triple the amount two years earlier.Meanwhile, the \u2018fairy tale\u2019 acquisitions of Dropcam, Nest, Beats, and Oculus \u2014 and the IPO of GoPro \u2014 fuel public interest and momentum for new startups in hardware.<\/p>\n

Hardware is the new software.<\/p>\n

The past decade made it increasingly easy for anyone with a bright idea to launch an app, thanks to the emergence of support factors as varied as crowdfunding, cloud infrastructure and open source communities like GitHub.<\/p>\n

Today, an entrepreneur might just as easily bring a viable hardware product to market. Credit is due here to many of the same factors \u2014 but also to a new breed of facilities that allow people to turn their bright ideas into physical products more quickly than ever before.<\/p>\n

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The Keyboardio ergonomic keyboard, which was incubated at Highway1 and is currently running a <\/em>Kickstarter campaign<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

These facilities range from hackerspaces and makerspaces \u2014 where a user can tinker away and build an initial prototype \u2014 to more sophisticated hardware incubators that can help individuals turn a prototype into a working, production-ready product within a matter of months.<\/p>\n

While there are differences in how these spaces operate, their net effect is the same: they are subverting the traditional manufacturing model and spawning a new generation of innovative hardware startups in the process.<\/p>\n

A Wave of Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Products like the Pebble<\/a> smartwatch and the Nest<\/a> thermostat \u2014 as well as other hardware innovations like SmartThings<\/a> or littleBits<\/a> \u2014 showed that the next great hardware products won\u2019t be born within the walls of large, traditional corporations, but in garages, makerspaces, and hardware incubators.<\/p>\n

The number of incubators and accelerators is growing quickly.  <\/p>\n

While there are well over a hundred incubators for early-stage software<\/em> companies, the number focused on hardware has lagged significantly. In the last year though, the number has grown from single-digits to upwards of two dozen in the US alone.   Europe and Asia are joining the fray as well with stand-out shops like Unternemertum and Hardware.co in Germany, and DMM<\/a> in Japan.<\/p>\n

Even well known brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Intel have taken note of this development and sought to emulate their nimble competitors by taking steps towards creating their own incubators. In doing so, these companies aim to support creative new entrepreneurs while rapidly pushing new ideas into reality.<\/p>\n

A similar mindset can be found at the Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator<\/a> (LACI), where accelerating innovation and reviving manufacturing is at the core of their mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cLACI was started nearly four years ago to help create manufacturing jobs in the heart of Los Angeles, an area that was once a vibrant manufacturing center,\u201d said Erik Steeb, LACI\u2019s vice president of portfolio company programs. \u201cCreating a lasting manufacturing capability via startups means getting design right early on, delivering an effective prototyping capability, and providing the necessary support and venture funding infrastructure required to help startups succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Supporting the Movement<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Autodesk, we see the exciting developments within hardware incubators as part of a larger transformation in the making of all things.  New tools for prototyping and fabrication have become more accessible to everyone. At the same time, products are becoming aware and more interconnected \u2014 all as consumers expect a significantly more customized experience.<\/p>\n

The nexus of these trends has spawned a new wave of entrepreneurs guided by a fresh philosophy of design thinking. We feel that Autodesk\u2019s strong heritage in creativity and design tools requires us to provide meaningful support for this emerging community.<\/p>\n

As a result, we\u2019re building relationships throughout the hardware scene and focusing on incubators and accelerators in particular, as we see them as the greatest opportunity to help move the conversation forward.<\/p>\n

Most of our partners are in North America \u2014 like Highway1<\/a> in San Francisco, Bolt<\/a> in Boston and AlphaLab<\/a> in Pittsburgh, as pictured below \u2014 but we\u2019re expanding relationships to Europe and Asia as the movement grows globally.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re contributing to the vibrancy of the ecosystem in several ways.<\/p>\n