Indiegogo and Arrow Electronics,have teamed up to create a ground-breaking new crowdfund-to-production platform helping entrepreneurs to get their products from design to production faster.
Arrow is integrating its design and production platform into Indiegogo’s crowdfunding engine—creating a first-of-its-kind program that will provide qualifying Indiegogo entrepreneurs with direct online access to Arrow’s design tools, engineering experts, prototype services, manufacturing support and even supply chain management—a total package of benefits worth up to $500,000.
Arrow will assess select Indiegogo campaigns for their technical feasibility, manufacturability and overall impact; Arrow-supported campaigns will be denoted on the Indiegogo site with a special Arrow badge.
“This is a completely new model of social funding, innovation and production in the technology and IoT space. Crowdfunding has never before been integrated into a fully scaled innovation platform like this that spans collaborative online design, prototype support, production and supply chain management,” said Matt Anderson, Arrow’s chief digital officer. “The Arrow-Indiegogo collaboration will enable successfully crowdfunded companies to scale faster than ever before to bring their products to market.”
In addition to technical and design support, Arrow will also provide qualifying Indiegogo entrepreneurs with discounts on bills of materials and technology-design software, as well as access to dedicated design engineers capable of solving the most complex design challenges via Arrow.com’s live video collaboration platform. The distributor will also feature select technology campaigns on Arrow.com and the Arrow technology-focused media network, which generates over 50 million page views a month.
“We’re very excited for this collaboration with Arrow, as it strengthens our commitment to helping entrepreneurs through every step of their journey,” said Indiegogo CEO David Mandelbrot. “We’ve seen an incredible amount of growth among tech and IoT projects on Indiegogo due in part because our team is constantly developing new ways to help entrepreneurs with support beyond funding. Collaborating with Arrow is a superb example of how Indiegogo partners with entrepreneurs through every phase of the entrepreneur’s lifecycle.”
The two companies formalised an alliance after Indiegogo entrepreneurs have increasingly turned to Arrow and the new Arrow.com to help transition innovative ideas into successful commercial products.
Solar Roadways, the project to turn roads into renewable energy sources, launched on Indiegogo and raised more than $2.2m in funding. With Arrow’s product support, the company is currently installing its first project in Idaho.
JIBO, the world’s first social robot for home, raised over $3 million in funding on Indiegogo. With Arrow’s design engineering support and services, JIBO robots are currently making their way to homes across the globe.
The new agreement makes Arrow a key component of Indiegogo’s efforts to support the entire product lifecycle for entrepreneurs on the platform—from idea and funding to design, production and sales. Arrow’s unique investment in digital tools, e-collaboration, and e-commerce has enabled the company to scale across a much larger customer base than a traditional brick and mortar model would allow.
“We have transformed Arrow.com into a comprehensive source of electronic components, datasheets, design tools, online engineering collaboration, reference designs and how-to content on the Internet,” said Anderson. “We are excited to unleash the resources of Arrow.com together with our industry leading, global, field teams, technical experts and project consulting services to a vast new audience.”
Over the last year, Indiegogo has introduced new services meant to support entrepreneurs beyond the crowdfunding stage of their business, including InDemand, which enables campaigns to continue accepting pre-orders after their crowdfunding efforts end, and the new Marketplace, an Indiegogo storefront for business owners to sell products that are shipping now. Collaborations with Brookstone and Amazon also help entrepreneurs on Indiegogo get their products to retail quicker than ever before.
Author
Mick Elliott
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