Craftphilia (Hong Kong): a crowdfunded 'fully automated' desktop tufting machine for hobbyists
Company · not yet checked at the source · Image permission pending
- Made by
- Craftphilia
- Date
- Kickstarter 16 Jun–16 Jul (year not confirmed; probably 2023)
- Place
- Hong Kong
- Held by
- Craftphilia
- Themes
- Hand-tufting tools & the gun, Companies & modern tufting, Global diffusion of tufting
Cite this source
Research notes
This is the first consumer-priced CNC tufter found, the hobby counterpart of Wilcom and EFAB. It was marketed on Kickstarter as the 'World's First Fully Automated Tufting Machine' (the company's own claim). Kicktraq records 634 backers and HK$4,050,697 against a HK$78,888 goal, for a 16 June–16 July campaign; the year was not shown. A search summary placed it in mid-2023, which is unconfirmed. Chinese outlet Baijing (白鲸出海) says it met its goal in about 5 minutes and raised about US$400,000 in a week, at $499 for a 50 × 50 cm frame or $849 for 70 × 140 cm. A Bilibili article gives US$450,000 in 10 days, a conflict. The company site and FAQ list the CF05 (50 × 50 cm, extendable to 50 × 100) and CF07 (70 × 70, extendable to 70 × 140). The free Craftphilia Studio software turns a JPG/PNG into colour-mapped paths. The machine does not change yarn colours itself, so the user swaps yarn by hand. Hackster reported 14–16 mm pile. Context: Shenzhen start-up CLAWLAB (founded Dec 2022 by ex-DJI engineer Hu Wenxin) launched a lightweight hand tufting kit on Kickstarter on 25 Apr 2024. It is not a CNC, but shows Chinese hardware firms selling into the hobby-tufting boom. Sources: https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/207408103/craftphilia-worlds-first-fully-automated-tufting-machine/ · https://www.baijing.cn/article/55772 · https://www.hackster.io/news/the-fully-automatic-craftphilia-tufting-machine-launches-on-kickstarter-with-a-bang-d6b216300ca9 · https://www.craftphilia.com/pages/faq · https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv51243845 Research note (Oct 2026): from search results; pages not opened. Link note (Oct 2026): Kicktraq timed out in two checks; the link is now the baijing.cn article listed in the sources.