There's a China connection in the recent deal that PCH made to buy the once high-rising and well-funded e-commerce startup, Fab, which crashed last year.
The product development and supply chain firm PCH has a major manufacturing and logistics base in Shenzhen, where its operations assemble, package and get products ready to ship for major multinational companies as well as small to medium-sized businesses. I've toured the operation in Shenzhen and interviewed founder Liam Casey there. No photos to share though since no snapshots were permitted due to confidentiality of their corporate clients.
PCH has been expanding from that Shenzhen operation into services higher up in the chain, and with the recent acquisition of New York-based Fab, getting a higher profile as a result -- and by helping more companies go international, narrowing the innovation distance between China and the U.S.
Its year-old PCH Innovation Hub in San Francisco is loaded with equipment to churn out and fine tune hardware products. The ground floor is a big loft space with bleachers (a cool venue for Silicon Dragon) and a patio. The company's related Innovation Highway accelerator works with 12 entrepreneurs at a time in a four-month course, taking a small equity stake along the way and offering $50,000 in cash.
PCH is well on its way to making its mark in hardware startups, one of the fastest-growing sectors in technology as software and hardware have integrated. PCH looks for startups with a good concept and hardware prototype, then helps them design a product that's fit to go to market.
With this acquisition of Fab, PCH is taking a further step to boost hardware startups, providing the entrepreneurs it works with a distribution outlet to sell their products. It's about lowering the barriers to entry for hardware startups to get their products into the global marketplace. The icing for PCH comes when these hardware startups leverage its facilities in Shenzhen for manufacturing and logistics support.
Headquartered in Ireland, PCH is still a private company, funded by venture capitalists that include Focus Ventures and True Ventures. Founder Casey has put in the hard work to ramp up PCH over the past nine years, traveling from his home country Ireland and living in a hotel for years at a time in Shenzhen to not waste time building his startup. Now he's added San Francisco to his regular stops, expect bigger waves for PCH (named after that famous California highway).
