Woman with pink hair standing in front of electronic manufacturing equipment, arms akimbo.

About Us

Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor "Ladyada" Fried. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. In the last 15 years, Adafruit has grown to over 100+ employees. Adafruit has expanded offerings to include tools, equipment, and electronics that Limor personally selects, tests, and approves before going in to the Adafruit store. Adafruit is a 100% woman owned manufacturing company, a certified Minority and Woman-owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE), a certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), and WOSB.
 

During the COVID-19 outbreak Adafruit Industries is operating as an essential service and manufacturing business: NYC – Executive Order 202.6 making PPE and medical device components. Adafruit was appointed to the Small Business Sector Advisory Council by the City of New York to help restart the NYC economy.

Post pandemic New York City launched a new Industrial Working Group which Adafruit is Co-Chairing, bringing together leaders from across the city’s industrial and manufacturing sectors with academics and policy experts to redefine the sectors’ needs and opportunities.

In 2024 Adafruit moved to Industry City! Brooklyn, New York! Industry City is a six-million-square-foot ecosystem in Brooklyn, NY - a bustling workplace for professionals across multiple disciplines including USA advanced electronics manufacturer Adafruit Industries! After hours and on weekends, Industry City becomes Brooklyn’s unofficial backyard, offering live music, festivals, dining, and tons of retail (video).

Better Business Bureau Accredited Business - BBB Rating: A+ as of 3/2/2023 - Click for Profile
Group photo of approximately 50 people in front of manufacturing equipment Two cool looking machinists, proudly holding pick and place feeders Friendly robot puppet holding up a round circuit board Group photo of approximately 40 people in front of manufacturing equipment. There is a pair of giant pink scissors.

In the Press

Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine, awarded Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, and was on the cover of Make: Vol. 57. Ladyada was a founding member of the NYC Industrial Business Advisory Council. Adafruit is ranked #11 in the top 20 USA manufacturing companies and #1 in New York City by Inc. 5000 "fastest growing private companies." Adafruit is featured in Google's Economic Impact Report. Limor was named a White House Champion of Change in 2016. In 2018 Limor became one of "America's Top 50 Women in Tech" by Forbes Magazine. Contact us for press queries.

Press Links

Woman with pink hair standing in front of White House Champions of Change logo Magazine cover of WIRED, with woman rolling up sleeve like Rosie the Riveter. Magazine spread of woman with pink hair, titled 'Entrepreneur of the Year 2012' and article title 'Modern Miracles' Cover of Make Magazine, with pink-hair woman holding up a round circuit board in front of one eye. Cover title is 'All Hands on Boards: Our Guide to 80+ Microcontrollers' subtitle is 'Adafruit's Limor Fried: the pioneering open source Engineer/CEO'

Made in NYC

Adafruit manufactures many of our own products right here in our NYC factory. From designing PCBs, to loading the pick and place machines. Printing, soldering, testing, debugging, and more...the Adafruit production line allows us to come up with new ideas and get them to customers in a matter of weeks. Our pick and place machine has produced over 3 million boards in 3 years! In addition to our product manufacturing, many of Adafruit’s shows and videos are produced and broadcast live from right here in the factory as well. This includes the long-running Ask an Engineer and Show & Tell programs, which air every Wednesday evening.

Two young individuals, backs turned, looking at electronic assembly on a worktable Young woman with pink hair working at an electronics workbench Two hands with punk bracelets assembling a grid of small electronic boards
Young man with baseball cap, at electronic work bench, breaking apart a grid of small electronic boards Samsung electronic assembly equipment line with New York City sunset in background

Engineered By Adafruit

Limor Fried, Adafruit founder and lead engineer, works with a team of talented Creative Engineers to develop community-driven products and code. For example, the Adafruit Feather (released in 2015) is a complete line with over 100 products, including development boards and accessories. In 2017, we introduced the coding language CircuitPython, our own branch of MicroPython, designed to simplify experimentation and education on low-cost microcontrollers. The Circuit Playground Express is our latest educational board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino - no soldering required! Crickit - our Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit - is a new add-on Circuit Playground Express that lets you #MakeRobotFriend.

Five round circuit boards in a row, with rainbow LEDs, one is upside down and says Circuit Playground on back Hand with bright red manicure, holding a small red circuit board Slightly-out-of-focus shot of a grid of rainbow LED circuitboard Hand holding up a capacitive touch screen, another hand doodling on the screen Isometric shot of a TSL2561 light sensor breakout board PCB