Hardware, because the saying goes, is tough; however there stays a possibility for startups that target particular niches to construct viable companies. In the most recent instance, reMarkable, the Oslo, Norway-based maker of a easy and slick $299 e-paper pill of the identical identify, says that it has handed 1 million units offered since 2017 and just lately raised cash at a $1 billion valuation after making revenues of $300 million and working income of $31 million in 2021.

Founder and CEO Magnus Wanberg stated reMarkable will not be disclosing the quantity of the funding, nor who was concerned, besides to say that it’s a minority stake within the firm and that it got here from a number of worldwide (not Norwegian) buyers. The firm employs 300+ individuals and Wanberg says it’s nonetheless “majority employee owned.”

“Nothing’s fishy but we’re keeping it confidential,” he stated after I requested why the reticence on the funding. He famous that whereas the deal was made final yr, the startup is disclosing it now as “a good indication, a signal out to the world” of how the corporate is doing. “This is just sprinkles for us,” he stated greater than as soon as throughout our interview.

Spark, which led a $15 million funding into the corporate in 2019 (when it had offered a mere 100,000 units), stays a shareholder within the firm, Wanberg added. And it appears that evidently the startup is open to elevating extra to spend money on progress (maybe one more reason for talking about its newest funding now).

reMarkable’s progress and milestone funding are outstanding (sorry needed to do it) in themselves, however what can be attention-grabbing is to contemplate why and the way an organization like reMarkable is discovering traction.

A lot of customers undoubtedly don’t appear to thoughts being very online, however there’s undoubtedly a seam of customers on the lookout for methods to make use of new expertise that doesn’t on the identical time spell being locked into the litany of pings and distractions that include a lot linked expertise in the present day. And more and more we’re seeing corporations constructing for that seam of customers. reMarkable is one in every of them. Wanberg believes that this firm’s success to this point is due largely to the main focus it has on “focus.”

“The future of the tablet as we see it is in the direction that Apple and others are heading, a fusion of laptop and tablet forms,” which enhances how individuals additionally use smartphones, he stated in an interview. “But our offering is a third device, a focussed space for books, drawing and notes, where you can really avoid distractions and procrastination. That is our positioning.”

Even its small concessions to aesthetics — the sound and really feel of reMarkable’s pen on its display screen are extra akin to a writing utensil shifting throughout paper than a stylus gliding on the glass of your iPad — really feel in help of attempting to assist individuals neglect they’re utilizing a bit of electronics.

The firm’s enterprise mannequin was initially banked round promoting {hardware}, which in the present day is utilized by “hundreds of thousands” of lively customers. The firm’s reMarkable 2 mannequin, launched in 2020 because the Covid-19 outbreak went world, actually rode the wave of extra individuals doing extra issues at residence and looking for extra nuanced makes use of for his or her quiet time.

But in October of final yr reMarkable made a wager on aligning itself nearer with that concept of focus, launching a subscription service referred to as Connect.

While others like Apple have additionally constructed out recurring companies companies based mostly round its {hardware}, this was an particularly necessary milestone for reMarkable, which has solely launched two units since being based in 2013 and touts that you do not want to purchase a brand new gadget for not less than 10 years if you purchase one.

Billed month-to-month in two tiers (regular at $7.99/month and “lite” at $4.99/month), Connect is how the startup plans to make a considerable a part of its cash going ahead (certainly, after I requested it declined to present any projections for gadget gross sales for 2022). Among its options, Connect supplies steady software program updates; cloud storage; connectivity with Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive if you would like it; an prolonged guarantee for the pill; handwriting conversion; display screen sharing and a function to ship by electronic mail — in different phrases, a number of options to get data into and out of your reMarkable pill, however in any other case nothing particularly real-time and dynamic.

In this fashion, despite the fact that it calls itself a pill, the reMarkable is extra like an e-reader, Wanberg stated.

“With an E-reader and you own and use it for quite a long time,” he defined. “In our business, it’s not a new-model-every-year dynamic. There is no emphasis on new model ownership. We don’t want to force our company to slap on some iteration for the sake of it. There is true innovation, major steps in terms of what we can offer the customer. We also think it’s great from a sustainability perspective [to move away from] pushing out new hardware.”

Wanberg didn’t disclose what number of have adopted Connect to date, solely noting that to date it has had a “great response” as reMarkable “tries to prove to customers that we can serve them on a running basis.” Given that Connect solely launched in October of final yr, it could be too early to inform. Its $31 million working revenue in 2021 was greater than triple its revenue in 2020 ($10 million), however reMarkable famous that this was “driven largely by sales of its latest paper tablet.”