Chinese VCs join funding round for gesture-based technology developer

Robert Bosch Venture Capital, the VC arm of the Bosch Group and Giza Venture Capita led the round, with Sandisk also participating. Hong Kong-based iNetworks continued its investment in the company from the seed round.

Pebbles develops hardware and software that provides intuitive 3D gesture interaction with smart phones, computers, smart TVs and other electronic devices, allowing them to be controlled by human gestures. The funding will be used to develop new products.

The company claims to have signed deals for mass manufacturing of a new generation of televisions and gesture-enabled devices.

Investor Xiaomi's mobile phones are sold in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was founded by super angel Lei Jun with seed funding from Morningside Technologies and Qiming Venture Partners. Its most recent round of investment in 2012, which was led by Yuri Milner of DST Advisors, valued the company at $4 billion.

Lei also set up Shunwei and is named as a co-founder of TQuan alongside other noted Chinese tech investors.

Mitsui Global Investment is an investor in another developer of touch-free interfaces for digital devices - eyeSight Mobile Technologies. EyeSight's software, which works off the cameras integrated into devices, is used in the iPhone, smart TVs from China's HiSense Electric and smartphones from South Korea's Pantech.

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