It seems that another popular, successfully crowdfunded gadget may not be shipping at all. The company that created Panono, the 360-degree camera that can be tossed up in the air, has filed for bankruptcy in Germany.
Panono uses 36 different cameras, all mounted to a spherical body that can be tossed in the air for aerial 360 shots, with a sensor that fires the cameras once the sphere reaches its highest point. The device can also be mounted on a tripod for photos a bit closer to the ground. Images are then sent to a cloud platform for storage and stitching. The camera’s unique design and 72-megapixel resolution resulted in an Indiegogo campaign that raised $1.25 million — but that was back in 2013.
The spherical camera was only a prototype, and the company wasn’t able to finish the product for the original 2014 shipping estimate. When a second prototype was created in 2015, with an even-higher 108 megapixel resolution, the company went to retailers hoping to get more pre-orders, probably in hopes of gaining enough funding for production after the long delay depleted those Indiegogo dollars.
The spherical camera had a price of around $500 for early backers, with 2,608 making pledges in that original campaign. The camera later shipped through some retailers, but according to Digital Photography Review, backers haven’t received their examples. While 360 cameras are now easier to find then when the Panono campaign launched, the spherical camera still has a unique design and a much higher resolution than other options on the market.
In a comment on the firm’s online forum, Panono confirmed that the company filed for bankruptcy last week. The company also said that it is working with interested investors and that the goal is to keep the company running, along with the cloud service required to stitch those images for users who already own the camera.
