Quanergy raises $90M to fund autonomous life-saving lidar technology

Aug. 23, 2016

Quanergy Systems raised $90 million in Series B funding at a valuation well over $1 billion for life-saving lidar.

Quanergy says its lidar sensors are eye-safe and feature 360 degree field of view, a few-hundred-meter range, centimeter accuracy, 30 Hz scanning frequency, 0.1 degree angular resolution, a high dynamic range under various weather conditions, and high reliability.

On the heels of another announcement regarding autonomous vehicle light detection and ranging (lidar) funding, solid-state lidar sensors and smart sensing solutions company Quanergy Systems (Sunnyvale, CA) raised $90 million in Series B funding at a valuation well over $1 billion. Sensata Technologies, Delphi Automotive, Samsung Ventures, Motus Ventures, and GP Capital participated in the round. This investment brings the company’s total funds raised to approximately $150 million.

Quanergy intends to use the investment and leverage its substantial intellectual property to work with its partners in ramping up the production of its solid-state lidar sensors. These sensors use standard semiconductor manufacturing processes and have no moving parts on a macro scale or a micro scale, offering significantly lower cost, higher reliability, superior performance, increased capability, smaller size, and lower weight when compared to traditional mechanical sensors, sometimes named hybrid solid-state sensors. Quanergy will continue the global expansion of the company and scale its operations and infrastructure to meet the growing demand for autonomy in vehicles and other systems that can benefit from increased levels of automation to save lives, save space, save time, save energy and save costs. According to industry experts, the lidar market is expected to exceed $1 billion by 2020 and $3 billion by 2022.

"Innovation in LiDAR technology represents one of the largest opportunities unfolding around the globe, and this infusion of funding will enable us to accelerate development, scale faster and expand our world-class engineering team," said Louay Eldada, Quanergy CEO. "We are grateful for the strong support from so many investors who share our vision of creating intelligent sensing solutions that permeate through multiple industries, significantly improving safety and efficiency. Our investors will be essential partners in our continued growth."

Quanergy says lidar is key to improved safety and efficiency in industries ranging from transportation and security to industrial automation and 3D terrestrial and aerial mapping.

SOURCE: Quanergy; http://www.quanergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Quanergy_Series_B_Press_Release_Final.pdf

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.