Today,
Framework
is
the
modular
repairable
laptop
company.
Tomorrow,
it
wants
to
be
a
consumer
electronics
company,
period.
That’s
one
of
the
biggest
reasons
it
just
raised
another
$18
million
in
funding
—
it
wants
to
expand
beyond
the
laptop
into
“additional
product
categories.”
Framework
CEO
Nirav
Patel
tells
me
that
has
always
been
the
plan
and
that
the
company
originally
had
other
viable
ideas
beyond
laptops,
too.
“We
chose
to
take
on
the
notebook
space
first,”
he
says,
partly
because
Framework
knew
it
could
bootstrap
its
ambitions
by
catering
to
the
PC
builders
and
tinkerers
and
Linux
enthusiasts
left
behind
by
big
OEMs
and
partly
because
it
wanted
to
go
big
or
go
home.
If
Framework
could
succeed
in
laptops,
he
thought,
it
would
be
able
to
build
almost
anything.
After
five
years
building
laptops,
what
might
Framework
add
to
the
portfolio?
Patel
won’t
say
—
I
only
get
the
barest
hints,
no
matter
how
many
different
ways
I
ask.
He
won’t
even
say
if
they’ll
make
less
or
more
of
a
splash
than
laptops.
Framework
might
choose
an
“equally
difficult”
category
or
might
instead
try
something
“a
bit
smaller
and
simpler
to
execute,
streamlined
now
that
we
have
all
this
infrastructure.”
Nor
will
he
say
if
they’ll
similarly
be
bootstrapped
by
enthusiast
gadget
lovers
or
skew
more
toward
the
everyday
consumer.
(Patel
recently
suggested
to
Jason
Carman
that
Framework
might
adapt
its
marketing
to
reach
more
everyday
audiences.)
“The
first
product
is
the
first
stake
in
the
ground.”
But
Patel
does
suggest
these
new
products
won’t
be
one-offs
—
that
when
Framework
raises
funding
for
a
new
product
category,
it
builds
a
roadmap
of
how
to
continue
that
product
year
after
year.
“Every
time
a
product
lands
on
a
roadmap,
we’re
not
going
to
say:
‘That’s
repairable,
that’s
it.’
The
first
product
is
the
first
stake
in
the
ground.”
The
company’s
$9
million
seed
round
paid
for
the
original
13-inch
laptop
design,
which
has
carried
on
for
three
generations
of
components.
Framework’s
$18
million
Series
A
in
2022
paid
for
the
Framework
Laptop
16.
Now,
it’s
getting
another
$18
million
for
its
next
expansion.
It
occurs
to
me:
might
Framework’s
team
need
to
focus
on
a
few
lingering
laptop
issues
before
moving
on
to
new
territory?
But
Patel
says
the
company’s
laptop
teams
won’t
shrink
over
time
—
it’s
just
that
some
cohorts,
like
industrial
designers,
don’t
need
to
stick
around
after
a
design
is
locked.
(Unlike
most
laptop
companies,
locking
the
design
is
a
plus
for
Framework
since
the
idea
is
to
let
you
keep
the
same
chassis
year
after
year
as
you
upgrade
and
repair
parts.)
Patel
says
both
the
Framework
Laptop
13
and
Framework
Laptop
16
have
long
lives
ahead
of
them,
even
though
he
still
won’t
quite
commit
to
the
16-inch
model
getting
future
GPU
upgrades.
“You’ll
be
the
first
to
know,”
he
tells
me.
The
Framework
Laptop
16,
with
many
more
modular
parts
than
the
original
13-incher.Photo
by
Vjeran
Pavic
/
The
Verge
Today,
Framework
has
about
50
employees,
and
it
plans
to
expand
to
60
before
the
end
of
the
year,
with
“a
bit
of
additional
team
growth”
in
2025.
It’s
a
small
company
that
needs
to
partner
to
actually
produce
hardware;
I
gather
that
its
laptop
partner,
Compal,
for
example,
does
a
bit
more
than
just
run
the
assembly
lines.
So
if
you
did
want
to
sleuth
out
what
Framework’s
cooking
next,
you
might
want
to
take
a
look
at
the
web
of
relationships
that
the
company’s
building
because
there’s
an
explicit
hint
about
that
in
its
press
release:
“We’ve
had
a
number
of
early
partnership
discussions
with
other
startups
in
our
investors’
portfolios,”
one
line
reads.
Another
line
points
out
that
Cooler
Master,
which
designed
the
thermal
solution
inside
the
Framework
Laptop
16
and
is
now
a
direct
investor,
might
help
Framework
build
new
products,
too.
“We
have
additional
collaborations
with
the
Cooler
Master
team
in
incubation
now.”
Framework
also
says
it’ll
let
100
community
members
invest
$10,000
each
of
their
own
money
in
the
company,
so
long
as
they’re
accredited
investors.
Original author: Sean Hollister
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