Excerpted from Mathilde Berchon:

“Open Hardware startups are primarily based in the United States: 68% of them have their headquarters in the US. Europe comes as secondary hub with 19%, followed by Asia with 7%.

If you get a closer look at the United States, you’ll notice that startups are mostly based on the coasts: San Francisco Bay Area (19%), New York and Boston Area (18%). It’s not a real surprise as this is where the open hardware ecosystem is the most active: universities with dedicated programs (ITP NYU, MIT Media Lab, Cornell, Stanford D School), very active and structured hackerspaces (Noisebridge, NYC Resistor, Artisan’s Asylum), entrepreneurial hubs.

What is more surprising is how open hardware startups are spread all over the US. Most open hardware businesses are fully online. Collaboration, distribution and communication don’t require any prime located headquarters. In the open hardware world, location doesn’t really matter.

The number of open hardware startups is increasing, mostly since 2007. Before this date, about only one company per year was launched: Parallax (1986), Solarbotics (1994), Lynxmotion (1995, acquired since then by RobotShop), ShopBot (1996), Egnite (1997), WIZnet (1998). Since 2007, the number of new open hardware startups is growing pretty fast. It takes an average of two years to go from a project to a product. With the rapid increase of open hardware projects – reaching now the thousands-, we might expect the birth of many new open hardware startups in the coming years.

* Who is behind open hardware startups? Let’s look at the entrepreneurs

Most founders have a background in engineering (83%), going from advanced hobbyist to NASA physicist. Many of them have a day job and work on their company project in their spare time. Founders with a background in design reach the second position with 17%, including many digital artists who also know how to solder and code. Teachers and researchers are in the third group with 14%, and guess what… many of them are sciences and engineering teachers.

Interestingly, numbers show that 47% of open hardware companies are led by solo entrepreneurs (52% are in teams). Hardware makes it usually very hard to be on your own, but with open hardware, it’s a bit easier as soon as you have contributors to your project. A culture of sharing knowledge and skills also helps tremendously. Many entrepreneurs are building their open hardware business in their free time, on their own.

* Women are not launching open hardware companies?

Expect exemplary Lady Ada with Adafruit Industries or Ayah Bdeir with LittleBits, the vast majority of open hardware startups have been founded by men so far. Only 5% of companies have been launched by women-only, and a total of only 10% include women in the founding team. It’s surprising as the open hardware world is pretty inclusive and many women are very active in hackerspaces, events and research projects. Not so many of them jump from project to company so far.

Open hardware startups are mostly boostrapped: 62% of them are bootstrapped. 28% are fully or partially financed by crowdfunding. Very little are VC backed. Crowdfunding is getting a lot of (deserved) attention and many open hardware startups have strongly benefited from their campaign. Printrbot, Makey Makey, Pinoccio, Galago, NeoLucida, RFduino, Foldarap are just a few examples that show that open hardware fit very well with the crowdfunding strategy. Product strategy, from development to sales, is driven by the community.”

“Electronics for hobbyists and education is by far the number one market addressed by open hardware companies. 63% of them are developing products for hobbyists’ electronics, education and prototyping. Many of them are inspired by Arduino or Rasperry Pi success, developing compatible boards, shields and kits.

The second position goes to fabrication tools (15%), and more specifically to 3D printing (11%). Market is then fragmented between many niches that reflects open hardware entrepreneurs passions: drones (3%), lights (3%), synthesizers (2%), construction kits… “