Blackbird-backed Caligra opens pre-orders for developer-focused computer
The company, founded by fintech veterans, has opened pre-orders for its purpose-built workstations as they explore bringing final assembly back to Australia.
A homegrown Australian computer might seem like a pie-in-the-sky ambition, but fintech veterans Dom Pym and Grant Bissett are making it a reality with the upcoming shipment of their hardware startup, Caligra, now underway.
Two years after sketching a workstation “for makers” on a whiteboard, the duo has opened pre-orders for the first 300 units of what they call the “tractor” of computers — Linux-powered machines stripped of consumer bloat, aimed at developers and designers frustrated with computers built for home entertainment.
The first units off the production line are already mostly spoken for, with Australian developers and tech enthusiasts making up the bulk of orders. Much of the early momentum can be traced back to Pym’s enthusiastic outreach through Melbourne’s tech network — a messaging blitz so intense that Apple temporarily banned him from iMessage.
The London-headquartered but Australian-founded startup quietly raised £1 million ($1.9 million) last year in a priced round led by Blackbird Ventures and is now preparing for a seed raise later this year.
