Hardware Club
ActiveVenture Capital
Updated: ·
About
We back founders on a mission to industrialize scientific and technological progress.
Financial History
Total Raised
N/A
Valuation
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Leadership Team
Key people at Hardware Club.
We back founders on a mission to industrialize scientific and technological progress.
Key people at Hardware Club.
Key people at Hardware Club.
Hardware Club, operating today as HCVC (Hardware Club Venture Capital), is a community-first venture capital firm focused on early-stage hardtech startups. Its mission is to back fearless founders who are industrializing scientific and technological progress—turning deep technical innovation into scalable, real-world businesses. HCVC invests globally in companies building transformative technologies at the intersection of hardware, software, and science, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, shared knowledge, and hands-on support.
The firm’s investment philosophy centers on the belief that hardtech founders face common, complex challenges—especially around manufacturing, supply chain, and scaling physical products—and that these hurdles are best overcome through a powerful, curated community. HCVC targets sectors including robotics, AI/ML, computer vision, healthtech, aerospace, energy, mobility, industrial automation, and advanced infrastructure. By combining capital with a tightly connected ecosystem of founders, engineers, and industry partners, HCVC has become a distinctive force in the hardtech ecosystem, helping founders de-risk and accelerate their path from lab to market.
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HCVC was founded in 2015 by Alexis Houssou as Hardware Club, starting not as a traditional VC but as the world’s largest community of hardware startup founders. Houssou recognized that hardware entrepreneurs, despite working on cutting-edge technologies, often struggled with similar operational bottlenecks—sourcing components, navigating manufacturing, and accessing distribution channels—and lacked a structured way to share solutions. The idea was simple but powerful: create a global peer network where founders could learn from each other, access shared resources, and benefit from collective experience.
Over time, the community evolved into a formal venture capital firm—HCVC—backing the most promising startups within the network and beyond. Early community members included notable successes like Misfit (acquired by Fossil) and The Eye Tribe (acquired by Facebook), validating the thesis that a strong, founder-centric community could surface and support breakout hardtech companies. With offices in Paris and San Francisco, and later expanding its team to include partners like Jerry Yang, Aymerik Renard, and venture partner Cyril Abiteboul (former Renault F1 team principal), HCVC solidified its identity as a hybrid: part venture fund, part founder collective.
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HCVC sits at the convergence of several powerful trends reshaping technology and industry. As software eats the world, the next frontier is software *and* hardware working in tandem—robots, drones, autonomous systems, smart infrastructure, and next-gen biomanufacturing. At the same time, geopolitical shifts, supply chain reconfiguration, and climate imperatives are driving renewed investment in physical innovation, from clean energy to advanced manufacturing and sovereign tech.
HCVC is well-positioned to capitalize on this hardtech renaissance. Its community model addresses a critical gap: the lack of shared infrastructure and knowledge for hardware founders, who often operate in silos. By creating a repeatable playbook for scaling hardtech, HCVC is helping to lower the barrier to entry for scientists and engineers turning research into products. In doing so, it’s not just funding companies—it’s shaping a new generation of industrial innovation, from fusion energy and gene therapy manufacturing to food robotics and autonomous drones.
Moreover, HCVC’s emphasis on “industrializing scientific progress” aligns with a broader shift toward mission-driven, capital-intensive startups that tackle hard problems in energy, health, and mobility. As governments and corporates increasingly seek partners to de-risk and scale deep tech, HCVC’s portfolio and network are becoming a go-to pipeline for next-generation industrial capabilities.
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Looking ahead, HCVC is likely to deepen its role as a central node in the global hardtech ecosystem. As robotics, AI-driven automation, and advanced biomanufacturing mature, the demand for specialized, hands-on investors who understand both the technical and operational realities of hardtech will only grow. HCVC is well-placed to expand its fund size, broaden its geographic reach (particularly into Asia and emerging markets), and further integrate its community with corporate and government innovation programs.
The firm’s future may also see more thematic bets—such as climate tech, sovereign AI/robotics, and bio-industrial platforms—while continuing to back outlier founders who are redefining what’s possible with hardware and science. As the line between software and physical systems blurs, HCVC’s hybrid model—capital + community + deep operational support—could become the blueprint for the next generation of venture firms focused on real-world impact.
In a world where the most important problems are increasingly *hard* problems, HCVC’s founding insight remains powerful: the best way to back hardtech is not just with money, but with a club of founders who’ve been there before.
