PITTSBURGH, PA — Brian Beyer, President and CEO of Hellbender, a fast-growing AI hardware startup, says tariffs are stifling the very kind of American manufacturing that policymakers claim to champion.
Founded four years ago, Hellbender specializes in “physical AI” devices — combining sensors, processors, and machine learning capabilities into products for healthcare, telemedicine, robotics, and even bicycle safety. The company has shipped over 45,000 systems and doubled its headcount, revenue, and product lines annually. “We thought we were exactly the kind of company these policies were supposed to support — American-grown, building factories, creating jobs,” Beyer said. “Instead, tariffs are slowing us down.”
One of the first blows came when Hellbender ordered a high-speed pick-and-place machine from France to expand its circuit board production. “There is not a competitive U.S.-made product that meets the same precision standards,” Beyer explained. “We had to write an unplanned $40,000 check just to pay the tariff. That’s a tax on building a factory.”
Tariffs on components have been equally disruptive. Beyer described a project to build mapping cameras, where image sensors assembled in China suddenly became subject to steep tariffs. “To avoid massive cost spikes that would have killed the order, we had to reroute assembly through Taiwan. That one move saved us about $230,000,” he said. Without it, the customer might have canceled entirely.
Even with workarounds, Hellbender’s customers — many of them small businesses — are scaling back. “The result we’ve seen is it just suppresses demand for new goods,” Beyer said. “Especially in this economy, with high borrowing rates, our customers are very mindful of their budgets. The tariffs just add to the pressure.”
The policy whiplash has made planning nearly impossible. “Keeping track of changing tariffs is difficult, even with good legal counsel,” he noted. “We’re still tied up in an active legal action from years ago over the government misclassifying imported parts. For a small business, that’s a huge drag.”
What frustrates Beyer most is the mismatch between political rhetoric and business reality. “If you say you want to build factories in the U.S., then why are you taxing the very process equipment and building materials needed to do it?” he asked. He noted that new tariffs on construction inputs increased the cost of renovating a new factory site by 33%. “It makes me wonder if I should even expand or just stay put with limited capacity.”
Hellbender’s 73 employees — all U.S.-based — are directly affected. Beyer insists on paying a living wage, starting assembly technicians at $25 per hour, supported in part by investments in automation. But sustaining that model becomes harder as costs climb.
Beyer acknowledges that reshoring every part of the supply chain is unrealistic. “If America tried to make everything domestically, prices would skyrocket. What we need is a smarter approach — one that boosts critical manufacturing, supports workforce development and reduces costs for companies trying to grow here.”
“Tariffs alone are a blunt instrument,” says Beyer. “Without a holistic strategy, the risk is that small businesses like ours slow down, pull back investment, or dilute ownership to survive.”
For Beyer, the irony is bitter: “We’re the profile of company that policymakers say they want — building things in America, creating jobs, innovating with AI. Yet the policies in place are making it harder, not easier, to grow.”