Humanmade Founder Session - Financial Strategy w/ Lauren Dermody
Founder Session: What Makes a Hardware Company Investable?
Building a great product is only part of building a company investors can believe in.
Join Humanmade for a Founder Session with Lauren Dermody, an early-stage investor and active member of the hardware startup community, for a conversation about how investors evaluate young hardware companies and what founders can do to build credibility long before a fundraising round begins.
Lauren will share her perspective from working with founders and evaluating early-stage companies, including the signals that get investors interested, how technical progress and customer traction factor into an investment story, and what separates a promising project from a company someone is ready to back.
We’ll also explore the realities of fundraising for hardware: when it makes sense to start building investor relationships, what “too early” actually looks like, and where venture capital fits alongside grants, revenue, and other sources of funding.
The session will include plenty of room for questions and discussion with Lauren, followed by networking with founders and members of the Bay Area hardware community.
About Humanmade Founder Sessions
Founder Sessions are part of the Humanmade Hardware Accelerator, a hands-on program supporting early-stage teams as they develop, test, manufacture, and commercialize physical products. The series brings founders, investors, and industry leaders into Humanmade for candid conversations grounded in practical experience and is open to the broader hardware community.
Schedule
4:30 PM — Doors open, networking
5:00 PM — Founder Session
6:00 PM — Audience Q&A
6:30 PM — Networking
The Accelerator is supported in part through California’s Accelerate CA initiative.
Hardware Accelerator 2026 Press One-Sheet.pdf
Funded in part through a Grant with the California Office of the Small Business Advocate.