Hellbender Releases Three New AI Cameras, Its First Standalone Products

Hellbender has been building computer vision edge hardware for third parties since its 2021 founding. Now, the company is unveiling products of its own.

The Pittsburgh-based startup announced a slate of AI cameras designed for customers to integrate into their own hardware. This suite includes a one-lens camera, a two-lens stereo camera designed for depth perception, and a camera system of up to 64 lenses for distributed monitoring.

These cameras run on Raspberry Pi compute, and its open developer network, along with Hailo's AI processors. All three are on-edge systems and process the data they capture directly on device, without requiring a cloud connection, improving latency and cutting down on operational costs. Hellbender is launching preorders for the cameras this month, with devices expected to start shipping out in August.

“These cameras have a hardware architecture that nobody else has, which makes it very easy, fast, and cheap for people to start working with them and bridge the gap between just fun little prototype project and full product very quickly,” Ben Cohen, Hellbender’s chief product officer, told A3.

Hellbender recently raised a $12.5 million seed round to help fund manufacturing for both the cameras and the company’s engineering services business. The round was co-led by Magarac Venture Partners and Veredas Partners with participation from Mana Ventures, Gaingels and Sum VC, among others.

It may have taken five years, but releasing its own hardware was always part of Hellbender’s plan. Brian Beyer launched the company alongside Mike Ramsay, Adela Wee, and Roger Nasci, to build a new approach to computer vision manufacturing by bringing the whole process in-house.

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The company started with engineering services to generate revenu while working on its longer-term product vision, Brett Phillips, chief revenue officer at Hellbender, told A3.

“[Beyer] didn't want to raise an exorbitant amount of money and just dilute us all,” Phillips said. “He used, effectively, other people's money to fund the [intellectual property] development and to fund the manufacturing capacity. For the majority of our customers, we were actually able to retain the IP to the foreground technology, the building blocks, the board designs and those kinds of pieces. Obviously our customers had the full IP rights to the final product that we made for them, but we were able to carve out and keep a lot of those building blocks.”

The focus on bringing the entire manufacturing process in-house is something Hellbender considers to be a big selling point both for its work with customers and its manufacturing for this camera line. Traditionally, companies have sent their prototypes to China or tried to navigate a web of different manufacturers, forcing the customer to act as a general contractor, Phillips said, which makes Hellbender an easier choice for companies, because it's a one-stop shop.

Despite the new products, the company isn’t pivoting away or devoting fewer resources to its engineering services business as it is seeing an increase in demand. As more companies look toward Hellbender for computer vision hardware, the startup plans to follow its customers' needs when it thinks about future product releases.

“The goal is for us to be that source, that trusted source that builds really quality, reliable products that are approachable and open for full autonomous systems,”  Cohen said. “We will be all of your building blocks. You get to build the software and snap them together.”