The New York City Hardware Startup Heat Map

New York City is no Shenzhen when it comes to electronics manufacturing. But the city has seen a number of impressive hardware startups take root and grow. And it's a diverse set of companies, from MakerBot and Adafruit Industries, which exist to help other makers realize their own hardware dreams, or organizations like the New York Hardware Start-up Meetup and the R/GA Accelerator, that are like support groups for tinkerers. But why here?

"They're starting their companies here because of the ancillary connections with some of the areas that New York has been very strong in, whether that's commerce, advertising, fashion, et cetera," says Jenny Fielding, managing director of Techstars.

This is our map of some of the most notable hardware startups in New York City. Our aim is to update it over time as the scene changes. Who have we missed that should be on the list? Leave a note in the comments.

1. LittleBits

   URL: http://littlebits.cc/
   Address: 601 West 26th St, #410 New York, NY 10001
   LittleBits, led by MIT Media Labber Ayah Bdier, is Legos for electronics. Their kits turn gadget prototyping into easy-to understand modules that snap together magnetically, with blocks that dole out power, let you connect an input, and spit out actions. The company has over $15 million in funding, the bulk of which came from a Series B round last November that included O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Nicholas Negroponte, Khosla Ventures, and Lerer Ventures.
   

2. Shapeways

   URL: http://www.shapeways.com/
   Address: Shapeways HQ 419 Park Ave South Suite 900, Floor 9 New York, NY 10016
   Although it was founded in the Netherlands, Shapeways now occupies a 25,000-square-foot factory in Long Island City that produces thousands of 3-D-printed objects every day. Any designer can upload their digital creation onto the site and have the Shapeways team 3-D print the object using their industrial printers. Once prototyped, they can use Shapeways' online marketplace to sell the physical wares to the public. Investors including Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz have pumped more than $48 million into Shapeways so far.
   

3. BotFactory

   URL: https://www.botfactory.co/
   Address: 20 Jay St #312 Brooklyn, NY 11201
   The founders of BotFactory, two NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering grad students and one of their professors, found a way for makers to design and print their own circuit boards faster and cheaper than had been possible before. Makers can even watch their boards being printed from home, via BotFactory's web interface. After raising a little over $100,000 from a Kickstarter campaign, the company is gearing up to begin selling its Squink printers for around $2,500 apiece.
   

4. Adafruit Industries

   URL: http://www.adafruit.com/
   Address: 150 Varick Street New York, NY 10013
   Adafruit Industries connects makers with open-source hardware, like the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino controller, to use in their own creations. The company keeps adding new electronics to their roster, while cultivating a community of DIY hardware enthusiasts. With over $22 million in revenue for 2013, Inc. recently named it one of the fastest growing private companies in manufacturing.
   

5. Canary

   URL: http://canary.is/
   Address: 96 Spring St 7th Floor New York, NY 10012
   This plug-and-play device alerts you on your mobile device when there are changes in movement, temperature, air quality--you name it--in a room. Canary is working on a smoke detector that measures overall air quality as well as a $199 home security device that raised $2 million on Indiegogo. The company recently received $10 million in Series A funding from Khosla Ventures as well as Dropbox investor Bobby Yazdani.
   

6. MakerBot

   URL: http://www.makerbot.com/
   Address: 87 3rd Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217
   MakerBot brought 3-D printing to the masses. The company was acquired by Stratasys in a $403 million transaction last year, and it's not yet clear whether the headquarters will remain in the city. Meanwhile, founder Bre Pettis stepped down from his role as CEO just last week and announced his new project Bold Machines, which is headquartered in a Brooklyn and will use Stratasys, MakerBot, and Solidscape 3-D printers to create, among other things, a feature film that will offer fans the ability to 3-D print every character.
   

7. SOLS

   URL: http://www.sols.co/
   Address: 1201 Broadway Suite 301 New York, NY 10001
   SOLS draws on NYC's fashion tradition to make their 3-D-printed insoles appealing to wearers. The company, founded by the former director of operations and industrial engineering at Shapeways, attracted $6.4 million in Series A funding this year led by Lux Capital.
   

8. EyeLock

   URL: http://www.eyelock.com/
   Address: 355 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10017
   Myris, this company's flagship product, is a device that scans your iris to access your online accounts and data. VOXX International gave EyeLock $3 million this year to further the company's password-free world view.
   

9. Enertiv

   URL: http://www.enertiv.com/
   Address: 333 W 39th Street, Floor 2, New York, NY 10018
   Enertiv has raised over $2 million to fuel its vision for a clean energy-monitoring system. Having taken part in NYC's R/GA Accelerator, the Enertiv team is staying put in the city and setting its sights on upgrading energy systems inside some of the city's prime real estate.
   

10. GoTenna

    URL: http://www.gotenna.com/
    Address: 102 S. 6th St. Brooklyn, NY 11249
    GoTenna lets you text off the grid when your phone doesn't have service. Your mobile device transmits your text to the goTenna device via Bluetooth, which then sends it to a receiving goTenna device over radio waves. It has raised $1.8 million in seed funding.
    

11. Ringly

    URL: https://ringly.com/
    Address: 200 Park Avenue, Suite 1501, New York, NY 10166
    Ringly knows that wearables have big potential for female consumers. So it's little wonder that its presale for its first product, a ring that lights up and vibrates to alerts you to phone calls, text messages, and emails from your mobile device, reached its first-day goal in under eight hours (and that was after raising over $100,000 on Kickstarter). The Ringly team, which fetched $1 million in seed funding from First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz among others, is set to deliver its $195 electronic jewelry this fall.
    

12. Keen Home

    URL: http://www.keenhome.io/
    Address: 137 Varick St, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10013
    Keen Home's founders supplanted their non-techie backgrounds with every resource that the NYC hardware scene has to offer. They took part in NYU's $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge, the NYC-based R/GA Accelerator, and attended New York Hardware Start-up Meetups in order to bring their $60 smart home ventilation system to life. The two-year-old company has only $120,000 in seed funding thus far, along with the $40,000 raised from Indiegogo and a $20,000 NYU grant which is being put toward a dorm-room pilot project.