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Digital Catapult > Case studies > Making the best of both worlds a reality for content creators: Why we invested in Camera Intelligence
Case Study

Making the best of both worlds a reality for content creators: Why we invested in Camera Intelligence

16.5 million people in the UK describe themselves as content creators – with one question front of mind: “What camera should I use?” The choice of creating content with high quality yet high cost, or with ease yet subpar standard, is the reality many creators face.  

Recognising this dilemma, Digital Catapult is creating market pathways to support promising deep tech companies, such as Camera Intelligence. We enable their solutions to scale faster through our acceleration programmes and direct investment, helping build influential contacts to go to market. 

Bridging Innovation Gap in the Creator Economy

The global creator economy is projected to reach £388 billion globally by 2027, with the European market projected to reach £84 billion by 2034. Despite that, only about 4% of global creators are deemed to have professional budgets, earning an average of £77,784 per year. This means that people at all levels of the creator economy require tools to keep up with the demand for content but often lack a solution to film high-quality content with what they already have – namely their smartphones. 

Digital Catapult saw Camera Intelligence’s potential to bridge this gap by making the best of both worlds possible – high quality content at an affordable price driven by AI intelligence. This vision was reinforced by a 400% increase in demand for Camera Intelligence’s product since January 2024.  

Camera Intelligence

Engagement with Digital Catapult

We were quite surprised to find an institution that supported both machine learning startups and machine intelligence startups, with a crossover with IoT. One of the immediate benefits was the access to the talent and resources of the technical team. Another big benefit was the cloud computing credits, which we made the most of to train our models in the cloud. Once we train them in the cloud, we wrap them up, compress them, and deploy them on our camera. So those cloud credits have come in really handy to allow us to train at scale.

Vishal Kumar Co-founder and CEO of Camera Intelligence

AI, future networks and more

Founded by Vishal Kumar and Liam Donovan, Camera Intelligence began participating in Digital Catapult’s deep tech support from the early stages of the business. Through our flagship artificial intelligence and machine learning accelerator programme, the team received support to help grow the business and develop the product.  

During the accelerator programme, Camera Intelligence was introduced to Arrow Electronics, one of Digital Catapult’s technical partners. This connection proved valuable by helping Camera Intelligence source the components needed for its AI-driven camera. Another introduction was made to SMS Electronics, a manufacturer based in Nottingham and a fellow cohort company on the programme, which was given the task of manufacturing the first Camera Intelligence units. 

The 5G Testbed Accelerator Programme has been helpful for us. Camera Intelligence’s camera attaches to the back of a smartphone, which today are 5G enabled, not only allowing the data to be downloaded at incredible speeds but also uploaded at incredible speeds. This allows us to take really high-quality professional footage and stream that online to places like YouTube and Instagram Live.

Vishal Kumar Co-founder and CEO of Camera Intelligence

Beyond our initial collaboration, the Camera Intelligence team benefited from Digital Catapult’s Future Networks Lab and our 5G Testbed Accelerator Programme which led to influential business connections and advanced the sales, manufacture and exposure of the Camera Intelligence.  

Investment facilitation and direct support

We also actively support Camera Intelligence in securing external funding. The team credits their close association with Digital Catapult for aiding their application to secure £175,000 from Innovate UK, contributing to salaries and hardware testing. As a testament to Camera Intelligence’s high growth potential and our ongoing commitment to deep tech companies, Digital Catapult has also directly invested £555,000 of convertible loan notes in Camera Intelligence made available by Innovate UK which allows Catapults to invest directly in the businesses we are supporting. This is the latest edition to our strong track record of supporting createch pioneers, having already facilitated more than £52 million of investment. 

YT Thumbnail – Camera Intelligence

Impact and Success

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After receiving Digital Catapult’s support, Camera Intelligence has developed an innovative solution that offers the quality of a professional DSLR camera without the excessive cost or bulk, utilising a solid aluminium frame that attaches to a smartphone. The team also met a representative from the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, which later became their initial sales channel for Camera Intelligence pre-orders. Launched in February 2021, the Indiegogo campaign far exceeded its £20,000 goal, raising £144,170: 720% of its target. With pre-orders sold out and 269 backers signed up, the Indiegogo funds went towards manufacturing 300 units of the Camera Intelligence. 

The product is fundamentally reimagining the relationship between creator and camera. Their camera uniquely combines the superior optical quality of a professional DSLR camera — featuring a large Micro Four Thirds sensor and an interchangeable lens mount — with the advanced processing power of a smartphone. The camera’s core electronics is driven by a cutting-edge Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC and a Google Coral Edge TPU (Tensor Processing Unit), providing the processing necessary to run sophisticated AI and deep learning models entirely on-device. 

This powerful hardware stack enables the camera’s defining feature: a proprietary AI architecture that transforms the camera into an intelligent collaborative creative partner. Camera Intelligence‘s innovative approach utilises a Large Language Model (LLM) for the first-time ever directly within an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera allowing creators to direct their creative workflow using natural language, significantly reducing the complexity of high-end production and unlocking new creative possibilities. The camera interprets user intent via voice commands to streamline everything from initial camera setup to applying complex visual styles, all in real-time. 

Looking ahead, Camera Intelligence is planning another sales campaign later in 2025 including the USA and Japan to target content creators worldwide who deserve a more suitable tool matched to the future direction of content creation. This ongoing expansion showcases the lasting impact of Digital Catapult’s foundational support in accelerating the practical application of deep tech. 

We’re extremely excited to be innovating by building the camera of the future in the UK, which is an excellent ecosystem for us to test technology and make it thrive. We’ve been conducting research and focus groups in close collaboration with the photography and content creation communities in London, which informed the development of a highly specialised LLM focused on camera-specific tasks. This ensures the technology meets the real-world needs of its users.

Vishal Kumar Co-founder and CEO of Camera Intelligence