Eve-Tech, a Finnish startup co-founded by a Ukrainian-born entrepreneur, has attracted more than $1.2 million on Indiegogo for its “first-ever crowd-developed computer,” far above its modest crowdfunding goal of $75,000.
The crowdfunding activity was so intense that it crashed the Indiegogo payment processing backend, said Eve-Tech to its thousands of backers: “That’s why some of you had troubles making payment.”
The startup presents its computer, christened ‘Eve V,’ as being “developed by the end users, [using] supreme hardware and Scandinavian design [at an] unbeatable price.”
The Eve V stands against traditional computers from “nonsense corporations.” These devices “often cost much less to make” with “over a half of the price tag going to support the old-fashioned distribution structures.”
The Eve-Tech team also believes that “the majority of design out there is just engineered either to keep a device together or sacrifice experience for visual beauty.”
“At eve we don’t compromise your experience nor visual beauty,” the startup claims.
Support from tech giants
Such considerations did not prevent tech giants such as Microsoft and Intel to invest in the project, marking their interest in the idea of crowd development.
“Both companies have helped by supporting us with their R&D resources and provided us with top-notch device testing and debugging facilities. Microsoft helps us ensure that Windows 10 and it’s hero features work flawlessly, while Intel helps us to achieve optimal thermal performance of the V and it’s hero features like Thunderbolt 3 with external graphics support,” Eve-Tech explains on Indiegogo.
Almost a thousand of “passionate individuals” globally have taken part in the design process via an open online community.
“This is a piece of equipment that tech nerds developed for themselves. A group of very different people interested in technology was involved in development: composers, shipbuilders and researchers,” the Finnish online magazine Yle quoted Konstantinos Karatsevidis, Eve’s co-founder, as saying.
From Black Sea to Baltic Sea
Karatsevidis a.k.a. Konstantin Karatchevtsev is a 22-year old Finnish entrepreneur who was born in the South-Ukrainian city of Mariupol. He moved to Finland at the age of 17, as reported by Ukrainian tech blog AIN.UA.
According to Yle, the company’s goal so far is to sell 50,000 units. Commercial production will start in China early next year.
Eve-Tech’s next product might be an external graphics processing unit “as a way of making some more computers support AR and VR.”
In the long term, the startup also aims “to develop an electric car with the community or a cyborg robot,” as reported by The Guardian.
Sources: Eve-Tech, Indiegogo, AIN.UA, Yle, The Guardian.
