Hard-tech is, indeed, harder—but that difficulty underscores its significance. Unlike software, which can often iterate quickly and scale with little marginal cost, physical technology must traverse a longer, riskier, and more capital-intensive journey from lab to market. The path is different—and so our investment approach must be too. We’re entering an era where AI and hardware are converging to reimagine everything from manufacturing and mobility to healthcare and infrastructure. As over 60% of global GDP is generated in the physical world, the future will belong to those who can bring intelligence to atoms, not just algorithms. This is why hard-tech demands not just capital, but community—teams of seasoned operators, systems thinkers, and deep-tech pioneers willing to take on the complexity, together.
We've all heard the stories—the promising hardware startup that ran out of capital before hitting scale, the brilliant technology that couldn't navigate regulatory hurdles, or the revolutionary product that couldn't overcome manufacturing challenges. These aren't ALWAYS failures of vision, capability o or even execution in the traditional sense— BUT MANY TIMES casualties of an investment infrastructure that is aligned with the unique nature each hardware company will face - unfortunately executing on and deploying world changing devices and tools is less of a formula, and more of an art.
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Building for reality carries a premium that software simply doesn't. It demands:
The result? A landscape littered with brilliant technologies that died not because they weren't valuable, but because they couldn't bridge the critical gaps between laboratory breakthrough, manufacturing reality, and market adoption.
At Conduit, we're not theorists—we're veterans of these battles. Our investment platform is built by operators and founders who have traversed the hardware journey hundreds of times, falling into (climbing out of) every possible valley of death. We've lived the midnight manufacturing crises negotiated with reluctant suppliers, redesigned for manufacturability, and felt the unique sting of watching physical inventory—real capital—sitting unsold, and taken the down-side-ways and even recap rounds. We've also experienced the unparalleled satisfaction of seeing our technologies transform industries and improve lives in tangible, meaningful and physical ways. (As I type this out on a warm and sunny Seattle afternoon Conduit Fellow, and all around bad-ass Andrew Putnam, is on week 3 at a semiconductor fab in Taiwan, inside a Cat 2-3 Typhoon, ensuring his teams next innovation enables us all to create magic).
The trials along the journey through the 'valleys of death' in hard-tech aren't inevitable tragedies—they're navigable challenges for those with the right map, equipment, fuel and guidance
This isn't just an investment thesis—it's a mission to rewrite the narrative around hardware innovation. Because yes, hardware is harder. But the things most worth building usually are. As we (quickly) explore the valleys of death in 'semi-detail', remember: these aren't warnings to stay away, but rather a set of truths to prepare for when crossing safely to the other side. The real world is waiting to be built—and we're here to help the builders who are brave enough to try.