⚡ The Analog #120: Trips to the World's Largest Electronics Market
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Interesting Links 🏭
Eric Migicovky’s blog is worth following, especially his recent post about a trip to Shenzhen to revive his old startup Pebble, one of the first smartwatches in the smartphone era. Pebble started out of Y Combinator, but actually raised the majority of their initial capital through Kickstarter in 2012 with $10.3M in crowdfunding, one of the platform’s biggest campaigns. The company’s rise and fall have been well-documented: a failed $740M acquisition, turning down a $70M offer from Intel, and an eventual sale to Fitbit for $23M (his reflections on success and failure at Pebble are also worth reading). Migicovsky is bringing Pebble back, this time with a new version of the watch after convincing Google to open-source Pebble OS. One of our favorite quotes from the post about how as industries mature, once novel products become ordinary commodities:
Back during Pebble round one, we had to use OEMs because no one had ever made a smartwatch before (including us!). There were no ‘wearable’ ODMs at all, so we spent a lot of time working with OEMs to invent new processes, like adding waterproof testing fixtures to consumer electronics production lines. Nowadays, I can tour numerous ODMs and see specifically how they make smartwatches in mass production.
Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen is the world’s largest electronic market—a place where you can literally source and buy any electronic component you can imagine. It started in 1988 as the SEG Electronics Market and has since expanded into 70 million square meters across 20 shopping malls. To get a sense of its sheer scale, one guy literally built an iPhone 6s from scratch by sourcing individual components from various vendors locally and assembling them himself.
The electronics of e-cigarette are surprisingly simple: a small LiPo battery (200-600mAh), a nichrome wire heater (the same type used in toasters and hair dryers), and a sensor that turns the heater on to vaporize a mix of solvents, flavors, and sweeteners. The airflow sensor often shares the same package as an MEMs microphone because it’s essentially built the same way—just repurposed to detect negative pressure differentials. Case in point: the AAC Technologies E511M-01 airflow sensor looks just like an SMD microphone but switches low when the pressure drops below -100 Pa, triggering only when the user inhales.
This year marks a battery manufacturing blitz in the U.S. with ten new battery production facilities set to open amid a ‘hockey stick’ growth phase in EV adoption. The largest facility is BlueOvalSK Battery Park in Kentucky, is actually two massive facilities built with Ford with a third 43 GWh facility underway in Tennessee. The smallest (at 20GWh!) is the Our Next Energy facility in Michigan. Altogether, that’s 390 GWh of new capacity, a 90% jump that will push total U.S. output to 421.5 GWh by year’s end if everything stays on track.
Flying Whales is a French-Canadian aerospace company developing the LCA60T, a massive 60-ton capacity airship designed for sustainable cargo transport in remote areas, using helium and hybrid-electric propulsion. Originally launched in 2012 to extract timber, its mission has grown to include transporting oversized cargo like wind turbine blades, backed by significant French investment and a global consortium. Despite delays pushing its prototype to 2028 and past geopolitical hurdles with a Chinese stakeholder, the company persists with its eco-friendly logistics vision. Recently, Flying Whales signed a contract with Exel Composites for 75 kilometers of carbon fiber tubes, with deliveries starting in Q3 2025.
A couple fun links to get you through the week:
One of the silliest product names we’ve come across, the Model Bra Pro is a LCD display dashboard for the Tesla Model 3 and Y.
A low-tech NASA test method on the Apollo program—engineers manually rocking a Saturn V test model back and forth to measure its response to lateral forces.
Startup News 🚀
Defense startups have been all the rage, with Rune adding into the mix after raising a $6.2M seed round to develop software for military field logistics. The company builds software to track supplies like food or equipment, predict future resupply needs, and help make predictive modeling decisions for when to restock key resources. The round was led by Andreensen Horowitz.
Quantum Machines has raised $170M in a Series C funding round to continue development of their quantum control solutions, including hardware and software like the Quantum Orchestration Platform (QOP), which manage qubit interactions, synchronization, and error correction. This recent round marks a significant milestone in quantum computing investment with $280M total raised. Their tech is now used by more than half of all the companies in the world that are working on quantum computers and quantum computing. The round was led by PSG Equity, alongside key investors like Intel Capital and Red Dot Capital Partners.
Claros, a power management platform, secured $9.75M in funding from major investors like Red Cell Partners and General Catalyst to optimize power delivery for AI data centers. Launching from stealth last week, the company is developing integrated voltage regulators (IVRs) to enhance energy efficiency by delivering power directly to server processors using a DC power distribution system. This will reduce power consumption by eliminating conversion losses from on-site DC generation such as PV panels and battery sources. The company is led by ex-Epirus CTO Daniel Kultran.
Nomagic, a Polish warehouse automation startup, raised $44M in Series B funding to scale deployment of their robotic sorting solutions across Europe. Nomagic’s robotic arms work in picking, packing, and sorting processes for industries like e-commerce and logistics. The funds will drive Nomagic’s expansion across Europe and North America, building on their 220% revenue growth in 2024. The round was led by ERBD Venture Capital, with key investors including Khosla Ventures, Almaz Capital, and the EIB providing venture debt.
Tereform has secured a $1.25M seed funding round to advance its chemical recycling technology for synthetic textiles. The company's proprietary process uses oxygen and bio-based solvents to break down polyester, including difficult blends with spandex and dyes, into monomers that can be re-polymerized into high-quality, virgin-equivalent polyester at near cost parity. The round was led by AccelR8 with participation from Toyota Ventures.
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Open Jobs 💼
Sponsored:
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Early Career:
Penumbra is looking for a R&D Engineer in Alameda, CA
Form Energy is looking for a Mechanical Engineer in Somerville, MA
Mid-Level:
Snap is looking for a Mechanical Engineer in Chandler, AZ
Anduril is looking for a Electrical Engineer (Power & Control Systems) in Costa Mesa, CA
Senior to Staff:
Sesame is hiring for engineering roles in San Francisco and Bellevue, WA:
Tools for Humanity is looking for a Head of Concept Engineering & Senior Product Manager, Hardware Devices in San Francisco, CA
Internships:
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