There was a time when New York was a manufacturing town. A lot of the former factory buildings are still standing in Queens, just east of Manhattan. In Brooklyn and SoHo, many of them have been converted to apartments and lofts.
That’s New York for you.
Well, heads up, hipsters: New York is a maker town again and while software certainly gets its fair share of attention, the Hardware Movement is in full swing all over this town.
Here are the makers and facilitators, the investors and the inventors, the people who sometimes literally get their hands dirty and who know what it means to make it in New York.
SEE THE 28 HARDWARE INNOVATORS IN NYC YOU SHOULD KNOW
Founder’s note: AlleyWatch does not have a financial relationship with any of those included. This list is in no particular order nor is it a ranking. In fact, the =RAND() function on excel was used to determine order.
Nikki Kaufman
Normal
Nikki Kaufman founded Normal because she believes that putting a mediocre, one-size-fits-all product into the intimate and one-of-a-kind spaces on either side of our heads – namely, our ears – is no longer acceptable. So without giving away secrets, she uses nerdalicious software and 3D printing to sculpt each one-of-a-kind pair of earbuds especially for you. Love the sounds of that!
The former Quirky Cultural Advisor is also married to Quirky founder Ben Kaufman.
Keep up with Nikki:
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Image credit: Twitter
Jeff Glasse
Kogeto
Named one of New York Observer‘s Top 12 to watch in 2012, Jeff Glasse has been innovating in the fields of digital media and video production for over twenty years. His latest project is Kogeto, an iPhone attachment that allows users to shoot 360-degree video from iPhone devices. Kogeto is transforming the way people capture and share video on the web by creating cameras that see the world around them and a web platform to let people share these experiences. And that would be a full 360 degree experience. The company has been working with Lionsgate and NASA, to name just a couple.
Keep up with Jeff:
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Image credit: Jeff Glasse
William O’ Farrell
Body Labs
Body Labs is a startup deploying cutting edge body modeling software for applications in the apparel, CAD and video gaming areas. The technology was spun out of the Max Planck Institute and Brown University, although founder and CEO Bill O’Farrell is an Adjunct Professor in the entrepreneur program at Columbia University. Simply put, Body Labs is 3D body imaging using the world’s most sophisticated understanding of human body size, shape, and motion to create a digital body platform upon which goods and services can be designed, manufactured, bought and sold.
Keep up with William:
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Image credit: Columbia Business School
Avner Ronen
Boxee
Avner Ronen is the founder and CEO of Boxee, although the platform was purchased by Samsung, and Ronen and the team joined the South Korean-based company.
Boxee is a cross-platform freeware HTPC software application with social networking features, designed for the home television, and was an early hardware device in the New York tech ecosystem.
Keep up with Avner:
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Image credit: CC by PaleyMC
Sam Cervantes
Solidoodle
Sam Cervantes is an old-fashioned entrepreneur. He set out to create the world’s most affordable 3D printer, making sure that it was easy to use, and he decided to totally bootstrap the company. The founder and CEO of Solidoodle succeeded and when you think about it, is it really rocket science?
Oh, wait, he’s a former aerospace engineer. And former COO at Makerbot.
Considering that the printers start at $499, you can afford to Solidoodle.
Keep up with Sam:
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Image credit: Solidoodle
Zack Schildhorn
Lux Capital
Zack Schildhorn is a Partner with Lux Capital, focusing on marketing, operations, and investments at the intersection of the digital and physical worlds. He has led Lux’s investments in Shapeways, Sols Systems, and Moment, and helped source the firm’s investment in Matterport. He has also worked extensively with a number of Lux portfolio companies including Transphorm, Kurion, and Siluria.
Before joining Lux, Zack worked as an expedition photographer on the Colorado Plateau. He created his own curriculum at Cornell University to study materials science and business entrepreneurship, graduating in 5 years with a B.S. in engineering and an MBA. He is a regular contributing editor for Forbes and has been an invited speaker and guest lecturer at Cornell University, Drexel University, NYU, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Did we mention that he invests in hardware?
Keep up with Zack:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Scott Cohen
New Lab
Scott Cohen is a cofounder and partner in New Lab, a multi-disciplinary technology and design center in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that fosters innovation in design, prototyping, and new manufacturing.
As developers of New Lab, Macro Sea is transforming 84,000 square feet of space into a high-tech design and prototyping center that will enhance the Yard’s initiative to become a national model for sustainable industrial parks. What was once a facility for building state-of-the-art ships is fast becoming a cutting edge center that incubates and encourages a renaissance of new manufacturing. Entrepreneurs, educators, and businesses in disciplines ranging from additive manufacturing, biotech, advanced robotics, architecture, and industrial design will work alongside one another in this unique space.
Cohen’s own work is centered on the interplay between disciplines. He’s a versatile artist working in film, photography and design. He has a long history of using motion picture film to create photographic images that are inherently about movement and time. His recently completed narrative feature film, Red Knot, shot on a research vessel in the southern ocean en route to and in Antarctica, premiered at the Seattle Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI Grand Jury Award for Best New American Cinema.
Keep up with Scott:
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Image credit: New Lab
Bre Pettis
Markerbot
At this point, who doesn’t know Bre Pettis? Or MakerBot? The former school teacher was early in (2009) in the 3D printing world. Founder and CEO of MakerBot, the company was acquired by Statasys.
He next founded Bold Machines, the innovation workshop at Stratasys, so no worries: Pettis is still front and center and very much part of the NY 3D Printing world.
And in case you didn’t know it, he was also founder of igniteNYC and cofounder of NYCResistor, a hacker collective with a shared space located in downtown Brooklyn. We meet regularly to share knowledge, hack on projects together, and build community. He’s been a fixture in the NY tech community for quite some time now…
Keep up with Bre:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Calvin Chu
Red Balloon Security
Calvin Chu is Chief Operating Officer at Red Balloon Security, a company devoted to developing products and services that are based upon the Software Symbiote technology invented in the IDS lab at Columbia University (Chu is former Senior Licensing Officer at Columbia Technology Ventures).
Co-founded by Ang Cui and Salvatore Stolfo, RBS has developed FRAK under the sponsorship of DARPA’s Cyber Fast Track program. FRAK is a system that provides the core capability to automatically unpack, modify and repack embedded system firmware to install Symbiote defenses. The Symbiote technology, exclusively licensed to Red Balloon Security, provides for the first time, effective host defenses for embedded systems.
Chu was also the founding Managing Director for the R/GA Accelerator powered by Techstars, focused on Internet of Things startup companies.
Keep up with Calvin:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Haytham Elhawary
NY Hardware Meetup
Haytham Elhawary’s two great passions are technology and entrepreneurship, and he’s a big believer in NY being a hub for the hardware startup community. He is currently the cofounder of a wearable tech company (and hardware Mentor in Residence at Indiegogo’s technology and design vertical), and was the director of the Zahn Center for Entrepreneurship, an incubator focused on startups that make physical products. He was also Mentor in Resident at R/GA powered by Techstars Connected Device Accelerator for their inaugural session. And yes, let’s not forget that he is the founder of the NY hardware startup meetup, where he brings together a strong community of people eager to build businesses with physical products, be it a cold fusion engine or a bionic fork.
His day jobs have involved research in robotics and medical devices both in an academic setting and in industry. In fact, he currently holds 18 patents and patent applications, and 36 publications. His side jobs tend to involve all things start-up related. He was also program leader for the Startup Leadership Program’s NYC chapter. He was educated at Imperial College, London (PhD, Mechanical/Biomedical Engineering) and has audited MBA classes at Harvard Business School, MIT and Imperial College Business School.
Keep up with Haytham:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Mark Belinsky
Birdi
Mark Belinsky is an entrepreneur and technologist who has developed projects at the intersection of technology and social good in over 26 countries. Currently he is CEO of Birdi, a multi-tool smoke detector for the modern world. Think canary in a coal mine. The sleek device monitors total air quality, tracking temperature, humidity, pollution and pollen, as well as the more traditional smoke and carbon dioxide levels. The beauty of Birdi isn’t just its incorporation of all these function into one device, but how it communicates with owners. Birdi connects with smart devices, delivering real-time assessment of air-quality directly to those who need it most, when they need it most. It can be silenced directly from within the app and is smart enough to notify authorities during a real danger. It is even smart enough to order its own battery replacements.
Prior to this, he worked as a creative technologist constructing privacy and security software with The The Guardian Project and building a new platform for tools to aid social change as CTO of The Toolbox. In Armenia, Belinsky co-founded and was a board member at Bem, a youth-based technology center. He is the co-founder of and advisor to Digital Democracy, a non-profit that empowers marginalized communities around the world to use technology to defend their human rights.
Keep up with Mark:
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Image credit: Mark Belinksy
Dave Eisenberg
Floored
Dave Eisenberg is cofounder and CEO at Floored, a company that develops software that turns 3D spatial data into clean interactive virtual worlds that can be explored through the web – and they’re nothing less than amazing.
Yes, it does take special hardware that they’ve developed as well, namely, their own open-source 3D scanner to help collect HDR photography and depth data.
Eisenberg is also at Red Swan Ventures, and yes, the fund did invest in Floored.
Keep up with Dave:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Alban Denoyel
Sketchfab
Craftsman and French entrepreneur, Alban Denoyel is cofounder of Sketchfab, a Techstars NY-incubated company whose platform lets you seamlessly find and embed 3D models into any project, onto any browser. There are no plugins required. There are embeds available for Facebook, WordPress, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Kickstarter. Sketchfab has buy-in from the likes of Quirky and (RED). C’est magnifique!
Keep up with Alban:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Kegan Schouwenburg
Sols Systems
‘Sols,’ as in the soles of your feet. SOLS are next generation orthotics and SOLS Systems cofounder and CEO Kegan Schouwenburg is a leading voice in 3D printing and mass customization – and obsessed with bringing nascent technology into the consumer sector. Schouwenburg’s background in industrial design and mass manufacturing gives her a unique perspective on scalable systems and products. and fuels her desire to bring beauty and simplicity to new markets.
The company is developing an all-in-one process to prescribe, generate and sell corrective orthoses – orthopedic insoles, to the rest of us – at a fraction of the price and lead time currently available. Their first product, SOLS, brings 3D printing to footwear through dynamic orthotics engineered to change the way the world walks.
Sols start with an easy to use 3D scanning app that snaps scans straight from your iPhone. Those scans are translated into perfect-fit custom insoles, customized to your liking, and sent to print.
They make sound like a walk in the park!
Keep up with Kegan:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Jared Schiffman
PERCH Interactive
Jared Schiffman has worked at the intersection of design, computer science and education for over two decades. His work fuses the physical world with the digital world and plays with relationship between the two. He is the founder of Perch Interactive Inc, a startup intent on revolutionizing the retail environment, starting with their first product PERCH, a 3D sensing projection surface that allows retailers to provide not only the merchandise, but the interactive content that formerly only resided online. Now, it’s right there, in store, on the product display, with built-in shopper analytics.
It’s cool. You lift the product from the display table and all of the information is projected where the product formerly sat: advertising, marketing and product information. It’s all about connecting the shopping experience with what you’d expect from website and TV, exploring it through rich media content, and putting all of that information at the point-of-purchase, where it can help to make the sale.
Over are the days of static in-store advertising and marketing campaigns. We’re sold! Retailers and brands can also change the narratives and experiences whenever they need to.
Schiffman holds an SB in Computer Science & Engineering from MIT and an MS from the MIT Media Lab.
Keep up with Jared:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Amanda Peyton
Grand St, Etsy
Amanda Peyton is the CEO and cofounder of Grand St. (named after the street in Brooklyn where the company was originally based), a marketplace and community for creative gadgets and electronics. Grand St sold and shipped indie electronics to customers all over the world and was acquired by Etsy in April 2014.
Keep up with Amanda:
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Image credit: CC by Chris Casciano
Dylan Reid
Matter.io
Designer turned maker, Matter.io cofounder and CEO Dylan Reid is on a mission to bring better manufacturing to the Fortune five million.
Which means you. For the most part.
Matter.io is simple manufacturing, built for designers. They make it easy (four simple steps) for product designers to spin up production and logistics as easily as developers spinning up servers.
Reid studied design at Cornell, where he co- founded its first maker space and failed safety training (twice). When he’s not at the office, he’s trying to assemble IKEA furniture. Hey, he’s a biz dev and user experience guy – and that’s why he has a team.
Keep up with Dylan:
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Image credit: Matter.io
Jonathan Hirschman
Make it NYC
Jonathan Hirschman organizes the MakeIt NYC Meetup, a general show-and-tell for physical things that you’ve made, where Makers can talk about their projects, how they created, what resources they’ve discovered, and what they’ve learned along the way. MakerIt is about showing off, learning, and asking about the “How” in How-To.
He’s also the founder of Pieco, where they make and sell hardware and things. In addition, Jonathan is the current Mentor in Residence at the R/GA powered by Techstars Connected Device Accelerator for the current session, serves as a judge and advisor for the current New York’s Next Top Maker’s program, and is currently working on a “secret” startup called “PCB:NG” that will be launching in Spring 2015, and is focused on electronics manufacturing.
Keep up with Jonathan:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Ayah Bdeir
littleBits
Ayah Bdeir is the founder and CEO of littleBits, an award-winning library of electronic modules that snap together with magnets, which have been dubbed “LEGOs for the iPad Generation.”
littleBits is the easiest and most extensive way to learn and prototype with electronics, with their ever-growing library of electronic modules, ranging from the very simple (power, sensors, LED) to the very complex (wireless, programmable).
No wonder they’ve won over a dozen toy awards.
Bdeir is also a TED Fellow, and a Creative Commons Fellow.
Keep up with Ayah:
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Image credit: Twitter
Greg March
KeyMe
You’ve locked yourself out of your apartment – again. You pull out your phone, find a locksmith, make the call, wait forever for the guy to show up. Door’s open, you’re in – but you’re also out a couple hundred bucks .
In case you missed the memo, the ‘90s are over. KeyMe is a key duplication platform where all you do is scan your keys with your smartphone, and get perfect duplicates in the mail. Or if you’re locked out, you head to the nearest KeyMe kiosk at 7-Eleven®, Bed Bath & Beyond®, or RiteAid® store and print out a fresh set of keys, since you (luckily) remembered to scan them into the KeyMe app. You can even go to a locksmith, show them your key scan (which includes instructions) and you’re in back in business – and your home.
Greg Marsh is founder and CEO – and general key man.
Keep up with Greg:
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Matthew Witheiler
Flybridge
Matt Witheiler is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, whose investment interests and experience broadly cover companies and technologies across the information technology sector including hardware, financial technology and education technology. He recently moved to New York to help lead the firm’s investment initiatives there as he detailed in his blog posts, “The State of NYC Investing: The story of why a Boston VC moved his wife and dog to NYC” (warning: he’s a Red Sox fan and makes no bones about it) and ” The New and Improved State of NYC Investing: What a difference a year makes.”
He also has a blog, where he frequently writes about hardware.
He also sits on the board of The Capital Network and is a Founding Executive Committee Member of First Growth Venture Network, a network of venture and angel investors supporting first and second time entrepreneurs building exciting companies in the New York area.
Witheiler also currently serves on the boards of Convoke Systems and Dragon Innovation and as an observer on the boards of Carnival Labs, DataXu, and Sand 9.
Keep up with Matt:
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LinkedIn
Blog
Image credit: Flybridge Capital
Mitch Golner
Internet of Things Meetup
Engineer, investor and former DreamIt Ventures Managing Partner (Israel), Mitch Golner organizes the NYC Internet of Things Meetup, with a focus on IoT, robotics, electronics, new tech, hardware, embedded systems and open source hardware.
He has lived and worked in Silicon Valley, Hong Kong, ShenZhen, China and Israel, but did you know that Golner holds a Masters and Bachelors Degrees in Electrical Engineering, is a graduate of the GE/Lockheed Martin Edison Engineering Program (EEP) and is the recipient of a NASA Virginia Space Grant? All true.
Keep up with Mitch:
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Image credit: Israel 21C/Yaki Zimmerman
Marshall Cox
Radiator Labs
Marshall Cox is founder and CEO of Radiator Labs, a start-up that came out of Columbia University, developing a connected retrofit for – you got it – those ancient steam heating systems so ubiquitous in so many New York apartments, aka, the radiator. Called a Thermostatic Radiator Enclosure (TRE), the device allows steam heating systems to turn convective heat transfer on or off at each individual radiator location. In addition to saving up to 30% of a buildings heating bill, TREs grant an apartment owner direct control over their apartment’s heat.
Yes, someone brought steamed heat – and those cast iron relics – into the 21st Century.
Radiator Labs is the Grand Prize recipient of the 2012 MIT Clean Energy Prize, and is a New York City Greentech 50 company.
As for Cox himself: he’s an inSITE Fellow, and a Startup Leadership Fellow, where he was voted “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the 2012 NY chapter by peers.
Keep up with Marshall:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Peter Weijmarshausen
Shapeways
Shapeways is a 3D printing marketplace and community that enables users to make, buy and sell their own personalized products. Founder Peter Weijmarshausen might not have designed the 3D printing machinery, but he did help to reshape the industry: Shapeways is democratizing creation for everyone, by bringing personalized production to everyone—whether they are already designing in 3D, want to design in 3D or are just looking to find and customize the perfect product.
It is all about just-in-time manufacturing and products are printed to order, which eliminates the need for inventory and cuts down dramatically on waste. 3D printing technology is the key enabler for this — it is simpler AND more advanced than current manufacturing methods. You can even print 18k gold, platinum and other precious metals and not-so-precious (but important) materials.
Keep up with Peter:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
Matt Turck
FirstMark Capital
Does anyone involved in hardware and the maker community in NYC not know Matt Turck? He’s all over the space – and more – and has been for quite some time. A partner at FirstMark Capital, he is also a mentor at Techstars NYC, DreamIt New York, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, First Growth Venture Network, and NYC Venture Fellows.
And he also finds the time to organize of two large monthly tech community events, Data Driven NYC and Hardwired NYC.
As if that isn’t enough, he’s also an angel investor and speaking of IoT: he has led FirstMark’s investments in Helium (IoT infrastructure), Sproutling (IoT/family tech) and Kinsa (IoT/health), and he is one of the Awesome People in the New York Tech Scene You Need to Know About.
For sure.
Keep up with Matt:
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Blog
Image credit: FirstMark Capital
Limor Fried
Adafruit
Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor “Ladyada” Fried. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best-designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. Adafruit has expanded offerings to include tools, equipment and electronics that Fried personally selects, tests and approves before going in to the Adafruit store.
Fried was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine and was recently awarded Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur of the year. In 2014 Adafruit was ranked #11 in the top 20 USA manufacturing companies and #1 in New York City by Inc. 5000 “fastest growing private companies.”
Keep up with Limor:
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Image credit: Google+
Sam Wurzel
Octopart
Octopart was founded by a trio of experimental physicists, including cofounder and CEO Sam Wurzel, who had a vision of there being a better way to find parts online.
Hard to be a maker if you don’t have the right stuff. And that includes the parts and pieces. Today, over 700,000 engineers, scientists and sourcing professionals use Octopart’s tools to search for parts across thousands of suppliers. Which means that the company is managing structured data for 30 million parts and growing.
Now you know where to go.
Keep up with Sam:
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Image credit: Twitter
Tom Kennedy
Refactory
Tom Kennedy is founder and CEO of Refactory, a company that develops hardware as quickly as other companies develop software. ReFactory’s block designer makes developing sophisticated functionality simple. If you require functionality that is not in the company’s functional block library, then they have custom development capabilities to make your product quickly and cheaply. They can build your functional prototype, and when you’re ready to hit the market, they can help build your initial production runs.
As for Kennedy himself, he has worked on a wide range of technical projects, such as medical devices, industrial control systems, robotics, wireless products and consumer electronics. He worked from 2004-2008 at Honeybee Robotics, an aerospace company. There, he was the lead electrical engineer for the Sample Manipulation System, a robotic sample handling system aboard Mars Curiosity, which continues to operate to this day on the surface of Mars. After Honeybee, Kennedy co-founded EnergyHub and served as the Director of Hardware Development and CTO, where he led the development of seven products that were deployed in the thousands by utility companies throughout the US. He worked on every aspect of the development from the hardware and firmware R&D to the selection of the contract manufacturers and the certification and mass production of the products. It was through this process that he learned firsthand how hardware startups get products made overseas and the challenges they face in doing so.
Yes, you’d be in good hands.
Keep up with Tom:
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Image credit: LinkedIn
