The criteria for evaluating early-stage hardware startups continues to evolve.
While innovation remains essential, investors increasingly look beyond ideas to understand how teams plan to execute, scale, and manage complexity.
Beyond the prototype
A functional prototype is an important milestone, but it is rarely sufficient on its own.
Investable hardware teams are often distinguished by their ability to:
- Demonstrate engineering decisions aligned with manufacturing constraints
- Understand supply chain dependencies
- Plan for quality, reliability, and scalability
- Communicate execution risks clearly
These factors influence not only feasibility, but also capital efficiency and timelines.
The role of structured evaluation
For early-stage teams, structured evaluation helps clarify strengths, gaps, and next steps.
Raise The Bar, led by NexPCB together with ATUM Ventures, incorporates an IC evaluation process designed to assess both technical potential and execution readiness.
Teams that pass the IC evaluation may receive a term sheet within one week post-event, subject to further due diligence and final approval.
Preparing for long-term growth
For early-stage teams, structured evaluation helps clarify strengths, gaps, and next steps.
Investment readiness is not about meeting a checklist. It is about demonstrating a credible path forward — technically, operationally, and structurally.
Raise The Bar provides early-stage teams with an opportunity to engage in this process early, grounded in real-world execution considerations.
👉 Learn more:
https://www.nexpcb.com/raise-the-bar
