littleBits closes Series A, announces unique partnership with PCH
Summary
Also among the investors are Khosla Ventures, OReilly Alpha Tech, Lerer Ventures, Jeffrey Walker and recurring investors: Joi Ito, Joanne Wilson, and Salah Chamma.The second piece of news is that we entered into a unique partnership with manufacturing and supply chain management leader PCH to produce littleBits as part of their Accelerator program. Only days after we launched our first products, they started flying off the shelves, and demand has been growing at an overwhelming pace. PCH creates consumer and medical electronics, accessories, and packaging for some of the most coveted brands in the world, and manages to combine mass scale with world-class quality. We are thrilled to be sharing our adventure with some incredible partners, who are not only some of the most well-respected investors in tech and open source hardware, but also share our vision of building a platform that inspires and propels the creativity of the worlds next many generations.In September of 2011, we raised a seed round led by Joi Ito (that included Nicholas Negroponte, Taha Mikati, Fadi Ghandour, Josh Spear, Jason Port, Joanne Wilson and Salah Chamma). In 9 short months, we launched 30 products on the market, won Best of ToyFair, got a talk on TED.com with close to 500k views, made partnerships with CNET and WIRED, sold thousands of kits and bits, and built an amazing team (Paul, Jordi, Krystal, Udit, Jen, Mary, Sima, you rock!