Key Takeaways James Bayly says Mindhive’s AI grading engine—trained on 14 million hides—detects 35+ defect types with high precision. Italy and Brazil were prioritized for expansion based on finishing sophistication and large-scale, multi-site operations. Series A capital will fund team growth, R&D, and regional support infrastructure in Brazil and Europe. Early pilots of FinishSelect™ show significant yield gains and faster processing speeds for finishing operations. Adoption barriers are organizational rather than technical, requiring deep change management. James Bayly on AI Transforming Traditional Leather Inspection Mindhive Global CEO James Bayly characterizes the company’s technology as a substantial shift from rapid human judgment to digital, data-rich analysis. The platform uses structured lighting, 4K line-scan cameras and neural networks to capture and grade each hide objectively. “Our core technology utilizes lights, cameras and significant computing power to enable machine-vision technology to capture an image of each hide we grade,” Bayly explained. Mindhive’s BlueSelect™…
