Framework Computer was forward of the curve. The corporate was based in 2019, as 20 U.S. states started exploring potential right to repair payments. It delivered its first product, the Framework 13, in 2021, a 12 months earlier than New York enacted its landmark (if flawed) Digital Truthful Restore Act.
As we speak, the company sells its repairable laptops in 13 nations throughout North America and Europe, together with Taiwan. Even so, Framework has been deliberate — cautious even — on the subject of elevating. Its final main spherical was an $18 million Sequence A, closed in early 2022.
“When we closed a Series A round two years ago, we shared our strategy around fundraising, which is to raise as little as possible and focus funds on efficiently expanding the reach of our mission,” the corporate notes. “You can now see the results of that investment with Framework Laptop 16 out in customers’ hands.”
On Tuesday, the corporate introduced a follow-up — a $17 million Sequence A-1. “We are a consumer company that’s not doing AI that successfully raised funding in 2024,” founder and CEO Nirav Patel tells TechCrunch, with a little bit of amusing.
There may be, certainly, one thing oddly refreshing in an organization that hasn’t shoehorned some unrelated little bit of ChatGPT performance into their pitch. As an alternative, Framework stays targeted on its core enterprise: user-repairable and upgradable laptops.
Patel is, nevertheless, fast to notice, “fundamentally, we are a consumer electronics company, not a laptop company.” That easy clarification highlights a key ingredient of this fundraising spherical. Whereas generative AI won’t be within the playing cards, an expanded portfolio actually is. Along with “scaling the reach” of its present choices, this new funding will go towards “extending to additional product categories.” Patel didn’t disclose specifics.
The European agency Fairphone, which operates on an identical philosophy of client entry, not too long ago expanded its personal portfolio. Along with smartphones, the corporate now provides repairable headphones and earbuds. “We love what they’re doing,” Patel says of the kindred firm. “It’s obviously a brutally competitive category that they’re in, and they’ve been doing quite well in it.”
A part of the funding will go towards hiring. Framework is planning to fill a complete of 10 roles in 2024, including to a headcount that’s presently just below 50. Despite that determine, the corporate maintains a large worldwide attain, together with the model new territory of Poland.
“It’s all direct to consumer,” says Patel. “We managed our go-to-market directly. We don’t deal with distributors or channels or retail, and we have this very, very short pipeline from warehouse to the consumer’s doorstep. That makes it operationally incredibly efficient. For the most part, we have a positive cash cycle, in the sense that we’re collecting money from the customers buying our product before we need to pay suppliers, in many cases.”
The spherical was led by Spark Capital and options Buckley Ventures, Anzu Companions, Cooler Grasp and Pathbreaker Ventures. Along with the $17 million, the corporate is opening up $1 million to fairness crowdfunding by way of $10,000 investments.
“It’s a little bit of an experiment,” says Patel. “We’re bringing in 100 investors, and probably for the most part, the vast majority of them are not going to be professional investors. This might even be the only private company investment any of them have ever made. We’ll see what that’s like, having that 100-person community board.”
