Bartlett entrepreneurs build innovative AI camera for online content creators

Bartlett alumni Vishal and Vik Kumar have built an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered camera that gives photographers and online creators much more control.

Cameras in mobile phones tend to have very small imaging sensors and tiny lens optics. This places limits on the creative control and quality of the resulting images and video. Which is why many content creators still rely on a dedicated camera to get the best results.  

But now there’s another option, thanks to a new camera developed by UCL entrepreneurs. Using AI technology, the Alice Camera can be attached to smartphones, allowing creators to produce a DSLR quality video in less than an hour. 

“With Alice, we want to help people produce high quality video ten times faster and cheaper than their current setup,” explains co-founder Vishal.  

Vishal (UCL Spatial Data Science and Visualisation 2017) and Vik Kumar (UCL Atomic & Particle Physics and Physical Chemistry) set up their business in 2019, alongside Dr Liam Donovan. 

The pair went through the Entrepreneur First programme while Vishal and Vik were studying at UCL. They were supported at the UCL Hatchery startup incubator within BaseKX, UCL’s entrepreneurship hub in King’s Cross. 

Vishal said: “There was massive support from UCL. The free office space and all the connections to the UCL ecosystem was hugely valuable.” 

The Alice Camera successfully raised $500,000 (£373,000) after the business caught the attention of investors at London Demo Day. The Alice Camera is now available to pre-order with an RRP of $1,499 (£1,110). 

Read the full story on the UCL Innovation & Enterprise website.

Further resources

• Alice Camera by Photogram 
• Entrepreneurship support for UCL students and graduates 
• Entrepreneurship skills training for doctoral students (SPERO) 
• Entrepreneur profile: Vishal Kumar, Alice Camera founder 
• The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) 
• UCL startup raises $500,000 in pre-seed funding following London Demo Day 

Contact

Rokia Raslan
Vice-Dean (Enterprise), The Bartlett
Email: r.raslan@ucl.ac.uk 

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