the timing was extremely bad for our project, to put it blandly
Well, at least we will never have to hear about how this or that version of an Intel (slashed their entire mobile division), or AMD (I don't bother checking up on it) chip is what makes this bad idea viable. It is a proprietary mess, and stuff like that matters.
If you want to make it, go open hardware, copylefted libre software, and avoid proprietary solutions both in terms of openness and re-engineering.
That ED does all this, with more success _while working another job_ is mind-bending.
From a ecosystem being open enough and at a stage making it vialbe, via ED to nicholas, there aren't a lot of other options other than grant-funding. If it isn't a simple structure and a simple product, costs increase significantly.