With the SaaS model under pressure, investors are chasing defensibility—and European hardware startups are delivering it.

The funding boosts Q3’s VC consumer-hardware dealmaking to 190% over Q2’s total.

The $6.5B acquisition is OpenAI’s biggest to date and the latest in the growing startup-to-startup M&A transaction trend

The Israeli-based startup raised $120 million for its edge computing devices, specialized chips that handle tasks locally as opposed to sending off information to a data center.

Investing in hardware has always been hard.

Scientists are still working to develop the next level of quantum computing. But venture capitalists have already invested $1.02 billion into quantum computing companies so far this year.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Mellanox Technologies for an enterprise value of around $6.9 billion, or $125 per share, marking one of the largest M&A deals ever for a company founded in Israel.

Snapchat has rebranded and announced its first physical product: a pair of glasses with an implanted camera reminiscent of the failed Google Glass, but perhaps this time it’s different.

The Oculus Rift headset shipped early this week, marking a potentially huge moment for the virtual reality industry. All eyes in the tech community are on the company and its debut product.

Turns out VCs have spurned the hardware sector in recent years, instead opting to fund startups in the cheaper software space. After collecting 399 VC financings worth $5.4 billion in 2004, non-software IT managed to generate a comparatively paltry 230 rounds worth $2.8 billion in 2013.

PitchBook will soon release its inaugural PE VC Global League Table Report, featuring the most active investors, lenders, advisors and law firms in the private equity and venture capital spaces in 2013.