Breakthrough sensors see way ahead

A technology start-up developing sensors adept in adverse weather and at night has completed a $17m series A funding round.

Israeli company TriEye has innovated Short-Wave-Infra-Red (SWIR) sensing technology.

It has secured funding from Intel Capital, with other investors including Marius Nacht, co-founder of Check Point Software Technologies, and TriEye’s existing investor Grove Ventures.

Its HD SWIR camera is expected to enter the market in 2020, allowing ADAS and autonomous vehicles to achieve flawless vision capabilities under common adverse weather and low-light conditions such as fog, dust or night-time. Its technology is scalable to mass-production, reducing the cost by a factor of 1,000.

Avi Bakal, CEO and co-founder of TriEye, said, ‘Low visibility conditions such as fog, darkness and dust, and hazards such as black ice on the road, are some of the main contributors to injuries and fatalities in car crashes. In the US alone, around 21% of all vehicle crashes – nearly 1.2 million annually – are weather related and often involve low visibility. Our mission is to save lives, reduce risks of accidents in these kind of safety critical conditions and do this in a very cost-efficient way.

‘The funding will be used to execute on our product roadmap for HD SWIR solutions, including our proprietary sensing algorithms. We are humbled by the trust shown by the investors in our series A round, and we remain mission-focused on this opportunity.’

Intel Capital Israel’s managing director Yair Shoham, said, ‘As the automotive industry transitions to autonomous driving, demand for sensor technologies is expected to grow rapidly. TriEye technology has the potential to enhance traditional camera functionalities by increasing performance in low visibility conditions in a way that complements vision-based camera sensor technologies. Intel Capital is delighted to support the TriEye team as it works to deliver on its vision.’

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