Fluxunit, the venture capital unit of Osram, is participating in Recogni's financing round together with VC funds, automotive manufacturers, and suppliers. The Silicon Valley and Munich-based company is developing an image-processing AI platform for autonomous vehicles that enables the processing of sensor data from LIDAR1, cameras, and RADAR sensors in real time and with low power consumption.
Recogni has raised a total of $25 million in a recent financing round. In addition to Osram's Fluxunit, GreatPoint Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures, BMW iVentures, Faurecia, and DNS Capital are also investing in the young company.
On the way to Autonomous driving Networked computing systems are required that efficiently control autonomous vehicles with a limited energy budget. While these AI systems are "trained" offline, they must later process the sensor data in the vehicle in real time. Autonomous vehicles have now reached the limits of their processors' processing efficiency. Therefore, Recogni is focusing on developing powerful AI processors with low energy consumption to make autonomous vehicles a reality.
“Unique and innovative approach”
Founded in 2018, the company aims to revolutionize the processing of sensor data for semi-autonomous vehicles. The startup aims to use its technology to ensure autonomous vehicles' real-time, low-power perception of their surroundings.
“We are firmly convinced of sensor fusion based on camera, RADAR and LIDAR, but the computational requirements for these algorithms remain one of the critical bottlenecks in autonomous driving,”
explained Sebastian Stamm, Investment Manager at Fluxunit – Osram Ventures. He continues:
“Recogni is solving this problem with a unique and highly innovative approach – we look forward to supporting this world-class team of chip and system developers and AI experts.”
Osram: new strategic direction
Recogni plans to use the fresh capital to develop its most powerful environmental perception system to date, called Perception. It fuses visual and LIDAR/RADAR data using state-of-the-art technology. At the same time, the startup plans to further expand its top-level development team.
The investment in Recogni underlines Osram's strategy to transform itself from a lighting manufacturer into a high-tech photonics company active in various future fields, such as autonomous driving.
