Sonair reaches $6.8M funding milestone

POSTED 10/08/2024

Oslo, Norway, October 7, 2024: The self sustaining cellular robotic (AMR) enterprise is rising all of a sudden at a 27% Twelve months-over-Twelve months payment.  As these robots change into more pervasive, the inch to create obvious they are able to safely navigate around folk and boundaries is on. Sonair is on the forefront of this innovation, launching a groundbreaking sensor that -for the first time – uses ultrasound in the air to give robots stable spatial consciousness in 3D.

Surely one of the priciest ingredients of an self sustaining cellular robotic (AMR) these days is its sensor package, critical for impediment detection and stable navigation. Fresh LiDAR systems are no longer supreme beefy and energy-hungry but furthermore computationally anxious, riding up costs and accounting for virtually a Third of the robotic’s label. A traditional 2D LiDAR scanner in an AMR supreme sees an particular particular person’s legs in a single horizontal plane. In disagreement, Sonair’s patented ADAR (Acoustic Ranging and Detection) technology detects folk and objects in 3D, with low vitality and computational necessities.

Learn the article in TechCrunch: Sonair takes a cue from dolphins to kind self sustaining 3D vision sans LIDAR

“ADAR is an enabling technology to your total cellular robotic sector,” says Knut Sandven, CEO of Sonair. “For cellular robotic builders, ADAR presents big technology price financial savings that would possibly possibly possibly possibly furthermore be passed on to total-customers, boosting automation adoption worldwide.”

Sonair has now raised a total of $6.8M with Skyfall Ventures leading the most contemporary $1.6M spherical. RunwayFBU, one more early-stage VC fund, furthermore contributed to the spherical.

“We’re extremely furious to make investments in the Sonair personnel, whose extensive ride in sensor technology, robotics, tool, and AI, mixed with their sturdy firm-building ride, is positioning Sonair as a surely thrilling firm,” says Preben Songe-Møller, Accomplice at Skyfall Ventures. “With diminished costs in sensor technology and AI traits in thought and decision-making, industries from manufacturing to healthcare are poised to learn from unprecedented effectivity and security improvements. Sonair is uniquely positioned to merit pressure this transformation.”

“In 2024 by myself, as much as 200,000 AMRs shall be produced, it’s a $1.4B market,” says Sagar Chandna at RunwayFBU. “Industrial automation and autonomy shall be key drivers of this notify, but the worth of sensors remains a friction point. Sonair’s improvements diagram to get to the underside of this deliver, unlocking even larger doable for the AMR enterprise.”

Ultrasonic sensors are less plagued by environmental elements equivalent to miserable lighting, mud, or changing temperatures, making sure real efficiency in various stipulations the put dilapidated sensors would possibly possibly possibly possibly also fail. Sonair’s sensor can furthermore detect reflective or peek-by diagram of surfaces equivalent to glass or mirrors with out deliver. Advantages no longer too prolonged ago recognized on the world Sensors Converge match in Santa Clara, California in June this Twelve months, the put Sonair obtained the Most productive of Sensors Award 2024 in the Car & Self sustaining sensor category.

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Evaluate kit delivers early traction

Sonair is leveraging the novel funding spherical to introduce its world early get entry to program with an evaluation kit that has like a flash been adopted by a huge assortment of warehouse AMR manufacturers, car OEMs, health- and cleaning robotics corporations.

“Early get entry to companions will get a first mover profit on a step forward sensing technology that addresses society’s urgent need for stable human-robotic interplay in a cluttered world,” says Sandven.

Two a protracted time in the making

The patented ADAR technology has been in vogue on the field-infamous MiNaLab sensor and nanotechnology be taught middle in Norway for larger than twenty years. The imaging diagram is named beamforming; it’s the spine of processing for sonar and radar, as successfully as in ultrasound imaging recognized in medicine but now veteran in the air.

By combining wavelength-matched transducers with cutting-edge tool for beamforming and object-recognition algorithms, Sonair makes 3D spatial recordsdata accessible merely by transmitting sound and listening. This permits cellular robots to detect distance and path to all objects in a 180×180 discipline of peep with a range of as much as 5 meters, providing a mighty broader discipline of peep than existing applied sciences, while furthermore detecting boundaries above and below the 2D plane of the LiDAR.

Manufacturers who resolve Sonair furthermore vastly lower overall complexity by changing a total lot of sensors that these days strive and make amends for the most contemporary boundaries. “Our technology is the put AI, machine finding out and automation surely converge,” says Sandven, who is furthermore markets for service robots, offer robots, and robotic arms. “We imagine a future the put folk and robots coexist seamlessly, guided by extremely-compact 3D ultrasonic sensors.”

Regarding the most contemporary funding spherical

Sonair has raised a total of $6.8M, no longer too prolonged ago alongside with two leading mission capital investors in a $1.6M spherical: Skyfall Ventures is an early-stage mission-capital fund that has invested in Nordic corporations since 2014, leaning closely in opposition to sectors adore AI, climate tech, blockchain, bioinformatics, cyber security, and robotics. RunwayFBU backs early-stage technology startups. that bid recordsdata and technology to create enterprise more ambiance pleasant, sustainable, and real. RunwayFBU is fragment of the Aker personnel of corporations, a huge industrial conglomerate.

Sonair’s existing investors consist of SINTEF Endeavor VI, ProVenture, Startuplab Founders Fund, and Stratel.

About Sonair

Sonair is an award-successful deep tech startup building a step forward, patented 3D ultrasonic sensor that enables lawful machine autonomy by making robots stable, life like, and ambiance pleasant. Sonair turned into spun out from a number one European just be taught group, SINTEF, to exploit deep science-to-tech traits in ultrasonics and Micro-ElectroMechanical Programs (MEMS). The usage of this technology, the firm is handing over a sensor that can transform a robotic’s vision from 2D to 3D, providing a considerably improved security efficiency over dilapidated vision systems while cutting costs by 50-80%. The firm, based mostly fully fully in Oslo, Norway, turned into based mostly in 2022 by an skilled personnel of serial entrepreneurs led by Knut Sandven, ancient CEO of GasSecure.

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Contact: Tor Odland, CMO, [email protected]. Cell: +47 99090872