[makestuff]

Yeah seeing the innovations DJI is making in agriculture makes me wonder why VCs do not want to fund other startups like it. I know the margins are worse and it takes way more capital to fund hardware companies, but that has to be better than funding another chat-gpt wrapper. I guess that is why I am not a VC though lol.

[Workaccount2]

To fund a software start-up you need 5 people and 5 laptops to get to tens of millions of value.

To fund a similar sized hardware start-up you need a full lab andddd already the proposition is dead.

[hengheng]

I've seen US startup people deal with manufacturing. There is a class gap that leaves no real space for skilled blue-collar work to exist and also be business critical, and fully integrated into the team. That is how a three-week turnaround for a milled prototype part ends up being tolerated.

[runlaszlorun]

You're completely ignoring the vast amounts thrown into a marketing funnel in an attempt to acquire customers for their usually meh products.

And engineering teams usually scale up with revenue as well.

I feel like your numbers are the myth that gets told not what actually often happens

[RealityVoid]

They're just hard. What is the US robotics startup that you would use as an example of success? iRobot? It barely broke even.

[raziel2701]

How is boston dynamics doing? They do very cool stuff but it feels like they struggle commercializing their technology. I remember they were once bought by google I think? And then spat out...

[evrimoztamur]

South Korea got to it: https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/brand-journal/mobility-...

[pineaux]

Too bad Hyundai is betting on hydrogen... Thats basically dead in the water.

[slavik81]

They also have battery electric cars. The Hyundai Ioniq and Kia EV vehicles are quite popular.

[sofixa]

Hyundai is a massive conglomerate doing a ton of different things. Having a side bet on hydrogen isn't bad, especially considering it's potential potential in applications such as aviation.

[conradev]

  It was also the Korean automaker’s best July sales month since launching its first vehicle in 1986.

  The growth was mainly driven by electrified vehicles, including EVs and hybrids (HEVs).

https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/hyundai-ioniq-5-shatters-us-s...

[snapcaster]

Anduril?

[neural_thing]

Skild, Physical Intelligence

[throwup238]

The infrastructure to rapidly iterate and manufacture just isn’t here anymore, so everything costs significantly more to the point where we’re noncompetitive. Even VCs with no experience see the top line numbers for hardware startups and nope out.

Contrast this with biotech venture capital which has been doing well for decades, often investing more capital in a year than software VCs. The difference is that all the research, clinical trial, and manufacturing expertise is already here and concentrated in a few localities like South San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston.

[makestuff]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Way easier to iterate when you have access to a machine shop vs having to upload a CAD file and have a part shipped from another country.

[mathiaspoint]

There isn't even anyone here competing with eg JLCPCB just for PCBs let alone all the other prototyping stuff. It makes sense, somehow China is able to do it for less than the materials cost.

I think that's why most people just aren't that upset about tariffs. It would be nice to be able to participate in our own economy other than by grifting off real estate or software.