Blickfeld, a Germany-based developer of sensor systems, known as Lidar, for autonomous vehicles, raised €3.6m ($4.2m) in seed funding today led by Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners (UVCP).
UVCP, the VC firm affiliated with Technical University of Munich’s tech transfer office Unternehmertum was joined by public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds as well as Fluxunit Osram Ventures and Tengelmann Ventures, respective investment arms of lighting producer Osram, and retailer Tengelmann.
Blickfeld’s Lidar technology uses off-the-shelf and silicon components, in an effort to manufacture its sensors at low-cost and at scale.
The money will go towards recruitment and will help Blickfeld qualify its sensors for use in series-production vehicles.
Florian Petit, co-founder of Blickfeld, said: “We are particularly proud of the support from both experienced venture capital investors, as well as from a large supplier to the automotive industry.
“On the way towards serial production, their diverse experience will help us to advance quickly. We are planning to deliver the first devices to automotive original equipment manufacturers in early 2018.”