Maker movement catches eyes of venture capitalists

Adafruit is one of hundreds of growing ventures in the United States that belong to the maker movement. These companies sell kits and support online communities of do-it-yourself types who make everything from toys to robots to 3-D printers, and their moment seems to have arrived: Maker Faire, the movement’s Woodstock, attracted perhaps 20,000 hard-core devotees five years ago. At last year’s events in Detroit and New York, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to presentations sponsored by the likes of PepsiCo, Ford, and Microsoft. And electronics giants Microchip Technology and Texas Instruments, hoping to profit from the maker zeitgeist, began offering their own kits last year.

The maker movement is "as significant as the shift from agriculture to the early industrial era," said Jeremy Rifkin, a Wharton economist.

Alexandra Dean

Full Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/18/BU5U1N8SPD.DTL&type=business

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