Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC), the corporate venture capital company of the Bosch group, completed a follow-on investment in ABAX Sensing. ABAX is developing a full solid-state chip Lidar for consumer and automotive applications, in particular for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles.

RBVC and Orbbec, a leading Chinese high-tech company focusing on 3D sensor technology, led the Pre-Series A financing round followed by GSR Capital and other investors.

The follow-on investment underlines our excitement in the disruptive approach of ABAX for the next generation Lidar and strengthens the growing Robert Bosch Venture Capital portfolio of companies in the field of sensors and software for autonomous vehicles.

—RBVC Managing Director Dr. Ingo Ramesohl

The continuous development of autonomous driving puts forward higher expectations towards hardware technologies such as Lidar—one of the key sensors to support autonomous vehicles in perceiving complex traffic environments.

ABAX’s enhanced chip-level solution intrinsically enables low costs and small product design, combined with functional requirements and safety. Its proprietary anti-interference technology eliminates mutual interferences among different Lidar devices and disturbance problems caused by ambient light very effectively.

ABAX is starting to conduct small-scale production testing and relevant customer trials on its first-generation Lidar products.