INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The future of the connected home, connected car and connected everything will have a lot of imaging technology at the center of it: sensors
to track the movement of people and things will be a critical way for AI brains to figure out what to do next
Today one of the startups building such solutions is announcing a big round of funding.Vayyar, an Israeli startup that builds radar-imaging
chips and sensors, as well as the software that reads and interprets the resulting images used in automotive and IoT applications (among
will use to expand the range of applications it can cover and to double down on key markets like the United States and China.From what I
the big multiple is because the company already has a number of big customers on its books, including the giant automotive supplier Valeo
This Series D is being led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, with Regal Four (an investment partner of KDT) and existing investors including
Battery Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, ICV, ITI, WRVI Capital and Claltech all also participating
The total raised by the startup now stands at $188 million.Koch Disruptive Technologies is the venture arm of Koch Industries, the
multinational giant that works across a range of oil and gas, manufacturing, ranching and other industries
It was founded by Fred Koch, the father of the Koch brothers, Charles and the late David, the longtime owners who are mostly known in
popular culture for their strong support of right-wing politicians, businesses and causes
number of ways of applying its technology on behalf of clients, who in turn develop ways of productising it
There are a few exceptions where Vayyar itself has built ways of using its tech in direct consumer products: for example, the Walabot, a
hand-held sensor that works in conjunction with a normal smartphone to give people the ability to, say, detect if a pipe is leaking behind a
wall.But for the most part, Melamed says that its focus has been on building technology for others to use
These have, for example, included in-car imaging sensors that can detect who is sitting where and what is going on inside the vehicle,
useful for example for making sure that no one is dangerously blocking an airbag, or accidentally setting off a seatbelt alarm when not
actually in a seat, or (in the case of a sleeping baby) being left behind on accident, creating potentially dire outcomes.Regulations will
focus (no pun intended) on privacy is a somewhat secondary side-effect of what Vayyar has built to date, but that same swing of regulation
is likely to continue to put it into the fore, and make it as much of a feature as the imaging detection itself.Vayyar is not the only
company using radar to build up better imaging intelligence: Entropix, Photonic Vision, Noitom Technology and Aquifi and ADI are among the
many companies also building imaging solutions based on the same kind of technology
