Hellbender Raises $12.5M in Seed Funding Led by Veredas Partners

The round also saw participation from Mana Ventures, Gaingels, Sum VC, and the Active Angels Network.

The company plans to use the funding to accelerate the rollout of its edge AI platforms, which are designed to enable real-time perception, reasoning, and decision-making in physical environments.

Hellbender uses a U.S.-based technology platform that helps reduce risks from global supply chain disruptions. Because of this, leading robotics companies rely on Hellbender to solve complex AI perception and edge-computer-vision challenges.

Hellbender developed its new AI hardware using technology and intellectual property that have already been tested in real-world applications. After spending years building custom edge AI and computer vision systems for major robotics companies, Hellbender is now turning those proven solutions into products that can be used more widely.

This launch represents a major shift for the company, moving from mainly providing engineering services and AI hardware manufacturing to becoming a commercial provider of physical AI platforms.

Hellbender designed its new AI cameras to reduce the complexity of custom hardware integration, so software teams can focus on building applications instead of infrastructure. Powered by Hailo AI accelerators and Raspberry Pi compute, the cameras deliver low-power, high-performance edge processing.

Read More:Benji Raises $6.25M in Seed Funding Led by Preface Ventures

"The market is in dire need of the edge computing solutions Hellbender is delivering," said Vaibhav (Vai) Viswanathan of Veredas Partners. "Developers building the next generation of autonomous and industrial systems have been severely bottlenecked by a lack of accessible, intelligent hardware. Hellbender's new line of physical AI cameras provides the exact depth perception, orchestration, and scalable infrastructure the industry is asking for right now."

"Hellbender has quickly become a critical backbone of Pittsburgh's robotics ecosystem and an emerging national leader in domestic AI hardware," said Jay Katarincic, Partner at Magarac Venture Partners. "They are one of the few companies globally offering a fully integrated solution — from initial ideation through scaled manufacturing — right here in the United States. As AI and robotics move from research to real-world deployment, the need for secure, onshore engineering and production has never been more important. Hellbender is uniquely positioned at the center of that shift. Their ability to nearly double revenue each year since founding reflects both strong execution and accelerating demand. We're thrilled to lead this round and support their continued growth."

About Hellbender

Founded in 2021, by Brian Beyer, Adela Wee, Roger Nasci, Nick Bland, Cameron Baldwin, and Chris Niessl, Hellbender is a physical AI infrastructure company that builds intelligent edge systems. It develops perception platforms that enable machines to see, understand and act in real-time across complex environments.

The company combines edge AI software with high-performance, proprietary hardware to deliver ready-to-use intelligence across industries such as energy, logistics, agriculture, manufacturing, and healthcare. By integrating engineering, U.S.-based manufacturing, and continuous improvement, Hellbender removes the delays and fragmentation of cloud-based systems. All products are designed and built in the United States to support secure, next-generation autonomous and embedded technologies.

Read More:Vital Signals Raises $15M Led by XYZ Ventures