Avnet has acquired a majority interest in Hackster, Inc., and will complete the acquisition of 100% of the publisher in January 2017. Hackster.io is an online community that helps users globally learn how to design, create and program internet-connected hardware. With nearly 90 technology partners, and 100 Hackster Live ambassadors that support a network consisting of close to 200,000 engineers, makers and hobbyists, Hackster.io is a strong community that will supplement the element14 community that Avnet acquired when it bought Farnell.
It’s interesting that Avnet has chosen Hackster: this is a somewhat different strategy to that pursued by rival Arrow, which appears to be on a mission to aquire as many professional electronics titles as possible. The “maker” market, which stretches from hobbyists to start-ups build by professional engineers, however, is probvably the hottest sector in electronics distribution today, which makes Hackster an extremely attractive publisher for any distributor. This is also borne out by the comments of William Amelio, chief executive officer of Avnet, who said:
“We are fully committed to helping start-ups bring their ideas to market. The addition of Hackster’s online platform will enable users to accelerate their hardware knowledge and time-to-market.”
We’re interested to see where this acquisition will take Avnet. In the short term, it clearly makes sense, and is probably a better option than Arrows approach, which is one of buying website traffic and data that may not be sustainable at current levels. As an agency that works with an Avnet company, we’re very excited by the news and are looking forward to generating some great content that will grow and develop the Hackster brand.