Sequoia, Blackbird join Series A for Australia's Baraja
Baraja, an Australia-based start-up developing guidance technology for autonomous vehicles, has raised a $32 million Series A round from investors including Sequoia China and Blackbird Ventures.
Sequoia led the round, along with Main Sequence Ventures, which manages the Australian government’s CSIRO Innovation Fund. As part of the deal, Sequoia China partner Steven Ji will join the company’s board.
Founded in 2015, Baraja’s flagship product is the Spectrum-Scan Lidar system introduced last year, which aims to improve on existing lidar technology used in current generations of autonomous vehicles. Unlike previous versions of the technology, Spectrum-Scan Lidar uses optical technology to send scanning light beams at varying wavelengths, allowing self-driving software to instantly change scan resolution and adapt to driving conditions for better safety.
“Everyone understands the challenges for traditional lidar,” said Ji in a statement. “They’re prohibitively expensive, difficult to manufacture at scale, and need to be incredibly robust. These problems need to be solved for the fully-autonomous vehicle to become a reality, which is why we’re so excited to be working with Baraja.”
Baraja will use the new capital to scale up production of its technology and grow its international team. In addition to its headquarters in Sydney, the company has offices in San Francisco and Shanghai.
Autonomous driving has become a popular investment segment in Asia, despite significant challenges such as regulatory hurdles, safety concerns, and cultural barriers. Guidance systems, which incorporate a wide range of technologies including software, processors, sensors, and communication equipment, are a particularly active area of development.
China is home to a number of VC-backed start-ups in the sector, such as Yihang, which claims to be the first Chinese autonomous driving start-up to receive mass production orders from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). RoboSense, WeRide, and Momenta, among others, have also received significant strategic and financial backing.
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