On Nov. 25, Camsense announced the completion of Series A+ financing of nearly 50 million RMB, led by Fengyang Capital and Chenhui Venture Capital, with Nanling Capital and Orient Fuhai as followers. Previously, Camsense had received investments from Oriental Fuhai, Yicun Capital and other institutions.
Camsense is a leading visual spatial positioning technology company in China, founded in 2014 by Christopher, a Tsinghua master with more than 10 years of in-depth research in the field of computer vision spatial positioning and human-computer interaction, dedicated to the research and development of high-precision positioning vision sensors, aiming to provide core technology and product support for various artificial intelligence applications. After more than 5 years, the company has accumulated profound technology. So far, Camsense has completely independent intellectual property rights of the core algorithm and chip (applied for 32 invention patents, has been authorized 14), is the first company in China has a monocular large space sub-millimeter positioning accuracy capabilities, its products are widely used in industrial inspection, medical surgery navigation, robotics and other fields.
The company founder & CEOChristopher said: "Camsnese scientific research team mainly comes from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, University of London and other well-known universities at home and abroad, and Bell Labs, Huawei, Qualcomm and other well-known international and domestic enterprises, with many years of experience in computer vision practice. With the accumulation of the team's technical strength in the industry, Camsense is what it is today."
It is understood that Camsense has started to achieve revenue balance.
Vision spatial positioning technology "downscaling", targeting the floor robot market
Camsense® M Pro is a low-cost, large-space, high-precision positioning system based on multiple monocular cameras. Camsense® M Pro is a low-cost, large-space, high-precision positioning system based on multiple monocular cameras, supporting up to 24 monocular cameras for spatial positioning of large scenes; while Camsense® S incorporates Camsense's multi-sensor fusion technology accumulated for many years, which can achieve sub-millimeter-0.2mm positioning accuracy in a large spatial range and real-time spatial 6-degree of freedom positioning of rigid body positioners. The two positioning devices have been deployed in Huazheng Inspection, Haier, Midea, 360 and other robotics labs, and have been commercially used in the production line of COMAC.
"From the market results, Camsense's technology is recognized in its final presentation form, a high-precision positioning system. So, if we precipitate in visual spatial positioning technology, conduct consumer-level product development, so that our technology lands in more industries, will it also be recognized?" Christopher said.
With this idea, Christopher, with his team, began to analyze and explore the market, and finally aimed at the field of sweeping robots: providing standard "eyes" for "intelligent" sweeping robots - LIDAR.
"First, in the dual trend of lazy economy and smart home, sweeping robots will become the standard equipment of every family, just like refrigerators and washing machines, with huge market share. Christopher said, "Second, although the sweeping robot has been developed for more than 20 years, but because the degree of intelligence is not high, did not get a large area of use, and with the development of technology, the final sweeping robot will certainly move from random blind collision type to the direction of intelligent, navigational development, and standard with the LIDAR sweeping robot will become the mainstream of the market. "
The result proved that Christopher's decision was correct.Camsense mass-produced the consumer-grade LiDAR-Camsense® X1 in 2018, and once launched, it was recognized by many well-known manufacturers for its high performance and high reliability, and now lands in commercial use with many first-tier floor sweeping robot brand manufacturers.
The Camsense® X1 has made many improvements in light source, lens and image sensor compared to the LIDAR on the market now, which on the one hand improves the performance and on the other hand avoids the patent risk in the traditional triangulation method, Christopher said, compared to Asia Optical's industrial grade linear image sensor for LIDAR. Camsense uses a surface array image sensor and self-developed image processing ASIC chip. The improvements this brings include.
1. lower cost of the surface array image sensor compared to the industrial grade image sensor, which can save 40% of cost for downstream manufacturers.
2, the use of a face-to-face image sensor, a larger vertical field of view than linear image sensors. The vertical field of view of current industrial grade linear image sensor is generally 0.15 degrees, while the vertical field of view of LIDAR with Camsense infrared sensor can reach 40 degrees, which makes it easier to calibrate and focus the light source during the production process.
3, the use of self-developed design for image processing ASIC chip, can avoid the use of costly general-purpose FPGA chip, thus effectively reduce costs, and embedded patent algorithm is more conducive to the protection of intellectual property rights.
It is reported that Camsense this round of funding will be used for new product development and production line construction, to further enhance the company's hardware and software strength, better for the sweeping robot industry to continue to provide cost-effective products.
Investors are interested in not only technical strength, but also commercial landing capability
For this round of financing, Xu Shaoleng, the project leader of Orient Fuhai, said, "Camsense is a leading vision technology R&D company with strong competitiveness, which not only breaks the monopoly barrier of foreign high-precision positioning technology, but also creates excellent import substitution products. This is extremely beneficial to the technological strength of China today. And the company's founding team has rich experience and resources in industry, academia and research, as well as in-depth understanding of the industry and application development trends, and has huge development opportunities in strategic emerging industries.
And Cai Zhi, investment director of Nanling Fund, also thinks: "Camsense team has accumulated many years in the field of high-precision vision positioning, and has found the application point of LIDAR in the consumer market of floor sweeper, and has won the favor of downstream floor sweeper manufacturers with its high cost performance and good response service, which is very important. From our observation of the smart hardware market in the past years, we found that only floor sweepers and smart locks are the only categories that can have large-scale sales and keep growing, so we believe that Camsense will have a huge market opportunity in the segment of floor sweepers. At the same time, Camsense also has deeper layout and landing in the field of industrial and medical surgical navigation, occupying the high point for the market with more technical barriers and thresholds, which is the main direction of the company's long-term development and cultivation. Therefore, we are very optimistic that Camsense will become an influential and core value company."
