Arduino Pulls in $32 Million in Funding to Push Its Vision for "Enterprise-Scale Applications"

Arduino's push into the enterprise, launched alongside its Arduino Pro branding, has been taken up a notch with the news of $32 million in investment — money it says it aims to spend to "empower […] a new generation of professional engineers with enterprise-scale applications."

"Engineers in [Gen Z and Millennial] generations grew up using Arduino boards in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Math] programs around the world, and they’ve become accustomed to the accessibility, simplicity and power of the company’s open-source hardware, software and cloud services," claims Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi. "They’re now taking those demands into the enterprise as they enter the labor force."

"The way corporations solve contemporary challenges and identify new business opportunities is quickly evolving as a new generation of engineers moves into the workforce in larger numbers," adds Arduino chief executive Fabio Violante. "With this investment we’re developing and delivering a new range of dedicated enterprise solutions to ignite this transformation."

The investment in question: $32 million, raised in a Series B round led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC) and including Anzu Partners, Renesas, and Arm. The names of those involved should prove familiar: Arduino has been working with Bosch Sensortec on Arduino Pro products, including the Nicla Sense ME, for some time, while many of its boards use Arm processing core IP. Amzu Partners, meanwhile, invests in industrial and life science companies.

While Arduino is best known for its impact in the education and hobbyist segments, the company's Arduino Pro range — designed for manufacturing, allowing use as either a development platform or the driving hardware behind a mass-produced commercial product — has been making considerable waves.

The funding, the company claims, will go towards pushing still further with projects in the works including low-code cloud services for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) development and deployment, new "intelligent-edge" system modules, new artificial intelligence capabilities, and an expansion of its Systems Integrators Partner Program.

The company is keen to point out, however, that its core values have not changed. "We were, and always will be, champions of open-source solutions," the Arduio Team claims. "Because they’re conducive to accessibility, because we believe in ground-up innovation, and because it’s the right thing to do in a world that’s riddled with inequalities."

More details on the funding are available on the Arduino blog.