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Exploride drove out of India to global crowdfunding site Indiegogo last week with bated breath. The crossed fingers turned to high-fives within an hour as the creators of this transparent heads-up display (HUD) for cars watched the Indiegogo counter ratchet up to $20,000. Half way through the fifth day, Exploride raced past its $100,000 target. Gleeful Sunil Vallath, founder, tells me that a new surge target will be set tomorrow. Probably $500,000.
Image via Tech in Asia
The Exploride team was quietly confident of its prospects on Indiegogo.
Before Exploride, two other hardware start-ups, also from Kerala, had successful campaigns. Mindhelix raised $120,000 on Kickstarter for Rico, a smarthome security device made from discarded smartphones. Fin, a wearable ring that turns your palm into a numeric keypad and gesture interface, raised $202,547 on Indiegogo. But the speed at which Exploride raced to its target sets a new high. It’s bound to inspire the many innovators hacking away on their smart gadgets in little corners of India.
Exploride may get the attention of global VCs too. Institutional VCs may be reluctant to put seed money into hardware start-ups, but they’re happy to back the ones that get going on crowdfunded platforms. One out of every 10 hardware start-ups that raised $100,000 or more on Kickstarter and Indiegogo went on to get funding from VCs.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.
