Scantinel Photonics, a startup developing lidar solutions for mobility and industrial applications, has secured a €10m extended Series A funding round. The round was backed by PhotonDelta and current investors Scania Growth Capital and Zeiss Ventures. Scantinel will use the funding to roll out their FMCW lidar devices to market.Lidar is less interference-prone and more accurate and precise at detecting objects and mapping than radar or visible-light cameras.
That’s why virtually the entire mobility world considers lidar imperative for effective, safe autonomous driving (the exception is Tesla, whose cocksure CEO Elon Musk thinks that lidar is dumb and that anyone who disagrees with him about this is wrong).
By using photonic chips, which use light instead of electrons to transfer information in microchips, Scantinel has developed their powerful, affordable, production-scalable FMCW lidar solution for broad application across industry and mobility. The solid-state technology delivers a detection range of more than 300 meters with superior resolution.. Scantinel has signed several partnerships with major global automotive, mobility and industrial companies.
The investment by PhotonDelta marks another step in their mission to build a European photonics ecosystem. In April, PhotonDelta secured €1.1bn in public and private investment to scale up production, build 200 startups, create new applications for photonic chips and develop infrastructure and talent. Scantinel cofounder and managing director Andy Zott says his company “see a great value having PhotonDelta as an additional investor and we are looking forward to maximizing the collaborations and benefits from PhotonDelta’s leading integrated photonics ecosystem”.