附近上门

, a startup looking to transform radar from analog to digital,聽 raised $45 million in a Series C round of funding, the company announced Tuesday.

Subscribe to the 附近上门 Daily

The company鈥檚 digital Radar-on-chip detects and tracks objects and is able to predict what they鈥檒l do next. That makes it useful for technologies like autonomous vehicles, for example.聽

The company, which was founded in Austin in 2015, is aiming to transform radar from its traditional analog modulations to the digital world.聽

鈥淥nce you鈥檝e gone digital, you can do three things,鈥� CEO said in an interview with 附近上门 News. 鈥淥ne, it鈥檚 much more programmable. Two, you can store and you can process it, which you can鈥檛 do with analog. Three, with digital you can get rid of noise almost completely.鈥澛�

The market for digital radar is large, according to the company. As Hegde puts it, 鈥淚f it moves, it will be automated.鈥�

鈥淚f they鈥檙e trying to automate it, they need perception,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd what our radar does is help them to perceive more.鈥�

The company鈥檚 competitive edge is not only its technology–Uhnder says it makes the only digital radar–it鈥檚 also its business model. Uhnder is a pure play radar company, meaning it not only builds the chip, but it builds the full sensor, module and software structure.聽

In a way, there鈥檚 been some competition between lidar (another remote sensing method) and radar. Lidar has been seen as a new, exciting technology, whereas radar has been around for a while and is seen as less exciting, Hegde said. Uhnder is making radar new again.

The Series C, which closed in November and was led by , will be used to fund the company鈥檚 growth next year while its chip is fully in production. Its signature product, called Voxel, is expected to be automotive qualified next year, according to a statement from the company. The company also plans to expand into other industries that are looking for better perception, such as the delivery and logistics space.

led Uhnder鈥檚 in 2017 and led the company鈥檚 in 2019.聽

Other investors in the company include , , , , , and .The Series C brings the company鈥檚 total funding to $145 million.聽

鈥淯hnder鈥檚 4D sensing can quickly detect, track, and generate a digital image of obstacles with precision that hasn’t been seen in the past,鈥� Sven Strohband, managing director at Khosla Ventures said in a statement. 鈥淥ur investment in Uhnder brings the market increasingly closer to realizing autonomous transportation.鈥澛�

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias