[citation needed] The Digital Bolex was initially developed as a side project of CEO Joseph Rubinstein's LA-based photo booth company Polite in Public.

[8][9] He decided to start a new company to pursue the endeavor in early 2011, and partnered with Canadian design firm Ienso in summer of 2011 to produce the first prototype camera.

[13] Billed "the first affordable digital cinema camera", the project came to the attention of notable film bloggers Philip Bloom[14] and Stu Maschwitz,[15] and by the campaign's second day the $100,000 goal had been met.

[16] Rubinstein and Schneider have said they purposely limited the number of cameras to 100 in order to avoid the manufacturing delays that had plagued other runaway crowdfunding successes.

[citation needed] As of December 2012, the Digital Bolex was one of the top 50 Kickstarter campaigns of all time, alongside the Oculus Rift, Double Fine Adventure, and Pebble watch, all of which were profiled by CNN Money for their late deliveries.

[18] The Digital Bolex received a large amount of press in print and on the web during and after its launch, including stories by Mashable,[19][20] Engadget,[21] PBS,[22] CNET,[23] Vice and Intel's The Creator's Project,[8] and Wired.

In addition to its raw capabilities, the camera is notable for its Super 16mm sized sensor,[22] allowing the usage of vintage 16mm lenses[24] with no crop, and its unique crank wheel encoder.

[citation needed] At the 2014 National Association of Broadcasters convention, Digital Bolex announced it would begin selling a monochrome cinema camera, the D16M.