Innoviz Grabs $4 Billion Deal With Huge Vehicle Manufacturer
Won't reveal the name of the customer...until May 11?
Israel-based Innoviz Technologies [INVZ] announced this week that one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers has selected it to become its direct Lidar supplier across its automotive brands. The company’s customer, which may be revealed at a May 11 earning’s call, is said to have a 10 percent share of the global auto market.
Innoviz said the deal increases its forward-looking order book by $4 billion to $6.6 billion. The deal is Innoviz’s third major design win, coming after two years of qualification, the company said.
Overall, the worldwide Lidar market has failed to meet the lofty expectations in the past year or so, said business publication Seeking Alpha. Because many of the automotive production agreements don’t begin until 2025, which limits revenue potential, the stock market has to trust backlog totals—even when not a lot of information is available, Seeking Alpha said.
Speculation from trade press mentioned Volkswagen or Daimler as possible Innoviz dealmakers.
Founded in January 2016 by Omer Keilaf, Oren Rosenzweig, Oren Buskila, and Amit Steinberg, Innoviz completed its merger with Texas-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Collective Growth Corporation at a $1.4 billion valuation in April 2021.
Last month, Innoviz partnered with system supplier LiangDao Intelligence to tailor the company’s Lidar solutions for OEMs in China.
Huawei Launches First Commercial 5G Indoor Positioning Solution
Saying it has reached 1-3 meter accuracy 90 percent of the time, Huawei launched its commercial 5G indoor positioning solution at its Global Analyst Summit. The company said the accuracy makes beacon-free positioning easier in complex indoor use cases, while supporting open standard interfacing to industry applications.
The company said that 5G positioning was introduced in the 3GPP Release 16, with a designed accuracy of 3 meters for 80 percent of the time indoors. The increased accuracy allows indoor positioning use for manufacturing, warehousing and transportation applications, said Marvin Chen, Huawei’s DIS product line president, in a statement.
“Exceeding the 3GPP requirements, such a high level of positioning accuracy and reliability allows most business applications to adequately locate personnel, equipment, and materials." Chen said. “3GPP is now working to increase the accuracy to within 1 meter to fulfill the requirements on higher-accuracy positioning in various industries.”
The company said that its 5G indoor positioning is split between LampSite Enterprise Edition (EE) and on-premises location service (LCS) modules. The new product supports open standard interfacing to third-party platforms and applications that need location information, the company said.
The product uses uplink time difference of arrival (UTDOA) and field strength fingerprint-based technologies to ensure indoor positioning can be implemented in both light-of-sight (LOS) and non-light-of-sight (NLOS) environments, the company said. Other features include radio simultaneous localization and mapping (Radio SLAM) and AI-based big data clustering iteration algorithm.
Neuron Mobility Grabs $43.5 Million in Series B Funding
Canada-based Neuron Mobility has raised $43.5 million in Series B funding, bringing the company’s total funding to $77.7 million. The investment round was co-led by global venture firms GSR Ventures and Square Peg, with Singapore’s EDBI joining the investment.
In addition to funding proprietary technology, the company says the new investment will accelerate the launch of Neuron’s “e-scooter brain” which will be rolled out on their e-scooters in key cities. The technology includes what Neuron calls High Accuracy Location Technology, or HALT, which can correct GPS variance to locate an e-scooter to within 10 centimeters. The company says the current industry norm is around 5-10 meters’ accuracy.
Neuron, founded in 2016, will also fund a range of smart sensors and its Dangerous Riding Detection system, which will preclude sidewalk riding, aggressive swerving, skidding, tandem riding and curb jumping, the company said. The company also launched a suite of geofencing to control where and how e-scooters are ridden.
Neuron hopes the new funding will allow it to expand its e-bikes and e-scooters to international markets. These new markets include cities that are limiting micromobility operators to prioritize “sustainable and responsible” companies, which the company says is part of its strategy.
Contact: Gwen McGuire, Neuron, gwen.mcguire@neuron.sg, https://rideneuron.com.
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😮 Sigfox Takeover Saddles Unabiz With Heavy Baggage. “Late last week, his firm beat off other tenders to secure ownership of Sigfox for the sum – of €25 million ($26.8 million). An apparent condition was a UnaBiz commitment to ‘definitely guarantee the French sovereignty of Sigfox.’”
💰 VW To Use Qualcomm Chips for Automated Driving, Report Says. “Sources say the deal will cost VW about 1 billion euros, with the contract set to run until 2031. VW's choice of Qualcomm as a partner for self-driving has surprised industry watchers. They expected the automaker to join with Mobileye, its long-time tech partner, Handelsblatt said.”
🚍 Self-driving Lane on I-94 Gets $130 Million From Ford and Others. “Michigan’s first connected and automated vehicle corridor received $130 million in capital funding, led by Ford and Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners.”
🚘 BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Mobility Intend To Sell Their Carsharing Joint Venture Share Now to Stellantis. Financial details not disclosed. “FREE NOW is a pioneer of multimodality - today the company offers access to almost 180,000 vehicles in over 150 cities.”
🚗 2023 Subaru Outback Joins Lamborghini and Mercedes With New Navigation System. “We heard about what3words back in 2017 when the company partnered with Mercedes-Benz, and again more recently when this functionality was added to the Lamborghini Huracan for 2022. But now it has announced a relationship with Subaru of America. The first model to benefit from what3words as part of its infotainment interface will be the 2023 Subaru Outback, appropriate for a car that is capable of traversing rough, desolate terrain.”
🥇 Polimove Car Breaks World Speed Record for Fully Autonomous Cars. “Their vehicle hit 192.2 mph or 309.3 km/h on the straight of the Space Shuttle airstrip at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The PoliMOVE car broke the previous world record held by Roborace at 174 mph or 282 kph.”
🙁 CalAmp Corp.: CalAmp's employee count changed from 983 in Feb 2021 to 887 in Feb 2022.
✔ CalAmp Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2022 Financial Results.
✔ CalAmp Discloses Receipt of Director Nominations.
✔ NextNav Announces Date for First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call.
✔ Trimble Shares Have Gotten Too Cheap To Ignore.
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Radar Partners With JOANN For Location Technology
New York-based Radar has partnered with JOANN, one of the largest brick and mortar stores with 69 million customers, to leverage location technology in stores nationally. With Radar's location technology, customers can locate items and place orders online if they can't find them in-store, the company said.
Radar said the initial phase of the partnership has already been a success, with a nearly 90 percent opt-in rate for customers and more than 25,000 orders.
JOANN wanted to make it easier for customers to locate products through their app and make additional purchases while in a store, the company said. By using geofencing, JOANN could validate that the customer was in a store, then display an in-app offer to fulfill their purchase through joann.com instead of visiting a competitor, the company said.
Contact: Radar, radar@launchsquad.com, www.radar.com.
Isuzu Australia Offers HERE Technologies for Navigation Services
Isuzu Trucks has selected HERE Navigation for embedded in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) platforms. The automaker will integrate the unit in its new 2022 model year F Series, FX Series and FY Series trucks sold in the country, the company said.
HERE Navigation offers a connected in-vehicle navigation system that is integrated in Isuzu’s embedded IVI platform – the MyIsuzu Co-Pilot. “The Australian truck and road transportation industry is going through major changes exacerbated by the pandemic. With road freight demand expected to increase in the coming years, it’s important that we leverage the best location technology,” said Daniel Antonello, HERE’s general manager of Australia and New Zealand, in a statement.
Contact: Camy Cheng, HERE Technologies, 65 9088 4127, Camy.cheng@here.com.
NextNav Partners With Last Mile Technology
NextNav has partnered with Last Mile Technology, a provider of asset movement and sensor event analysis services, to enhance vertical location capabilities of their asset tracking solutions. Last Mile’s Multi-function Asset Tracker, which has an embedded barometric sensor, will use NextNav Pinnacle to report 3D geolocation data of any asset via API, web, or mobile, the company said.
The enhanced service will support asset-tracking use-cases across construction applications, supply chains and logistics, and facilities management, among others, the company said.
Contact: Mahmood Abu-Rubieh, LaunchSquad for NextNav, nextnav@launchsquad.com.
GM and INRIX Partner To Develop Safety Solutions
General Motors [GM] and INRIX are partnering on safety solutions to help transportation and planning agencies achieve goals. The new solution, Safety View by GM Future Roads & INRIX, which will be available first in the United States, is a cloud-based application that provides transportation officials with insights using crash, vehicle, vulnerable road user (VRU), and data from the U.S. Census.
The Safety View by GM Future Roads & INRIX will help prioritize and measure the effectiveness of roadway safety projects and their impact on communities, the company said.
Contact: Mark Burfeind, INRIX, (425) 284-3825, mark.burfeind@inrix.com, www.inrix.com.
Swift Navigation Joins STMicroelectronics Partner Program
Swift Navigation has announced that it has joined the STMicroelectronics Partner Program to enabling the ST Teseo family of GNSS receivers and ASM330LHH to leverage Swift’s precise positioning technology platform. The platform consists of the Starling positioning engine paired with Swift’s Skylark cloud-based, GNSS corrections service.
Contact: Swift Navigation, swiftnav.com; STMicroelectronics, www.st.com/partners.
Airbus and Panel Make Review of V3 Generation of EGNOS
Airbus Defence and Space, with a panel of space and civil aviation experts, recently reviewed initial V3 generation of European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) service performance. The new V3 generation of EGNOS, under development by Airbus, will introduce new services based on multiple frequencies of multiple constellations (GPS, Galileo).
The assessment of the system performance included precision approach and landing in Europe, with or without instrument landing systems. The review confirmed EGNOS V3 will deliver the accuracy up to Category I.
Contact: Ralph Heinrich, Airbus Space Systems, 49 171 304 9751, ralph.heinrich@airbus.com.
Hapaq-Lloyd Selects ORBCOMM’s Telematics Technology
ORBCOMM said Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s leading global shipping lines, has selected its newest telematics technology for their fleet of dry marine containers. ORBCOMM’s dry container telematics tracking solution features transmission of a container’s real-time location and status over cellular connection to the Hapag-Lloyd LIVE platform.
Contact: Lina Paerez, ORBCOMM, (613) 875-1485, paerez.lina@orbcomm.com, www.orbcomm.com.
CRFS Tests 3D Geolocation Technology
CRFS has completed research and development into real-time passive 3DTDOA geolocation techniques to pinpoint airborne platforms over many hundreds of kilometers, the company said. CRFS captured more than 100,000 aircraft ADS-B transmissions across New York state using 4 RFeye receivers roughly 45 miles apart.
The RF transmissions were then geolocated using a three-dimensional Time Difference Of Arrival (3DTDOA) technique. To assess accuracy, the 3DTDOA geolocation results were compared to the decoded ADS-B GPS transmissions, the company said. The results achieved within the network demonstrated a range accuracy of 16 meters.
Contact: James Shepperd, media@crfs.com, www.crfs.com.
CHC Navigation Releases Lidar Processing Software
CHC Navigation has released its CoPre v2.4 Lidar processing software, which allows users to process mobile geospatial mapping data quickly and efficiently, the company said. CoPre features trajectory processing through a proprietary algorithm, point cloud and image georeferencing, data adjustment for post-processing accuracy, point cloud colorization, filtering and digital ortho model (DOM) generation, the company said.
CoPre supports POS processing of vehicle-mounted, UAV, or airborne setups, the company said.
Contact: CHC Navigation, 86 21 5426 0273, marketing@chcnav.com, www.chcnav.com.
PlaceSense and Reno Announce Reseller Agreement
PlaceSense has partnered with Reno, a real estate consultancy, to deliver a location performance intelligence platform for retail and commercial real estate businesses in Italy. PlaceSense’s multi-layered GPS location-based intelligence solution allows users to use data to choose locations, evaluate property value, mix tenants, benchmark against competitors, measure marketing and advertising activities, the company said.
Contact: Roni Dagan, PlaceSense, 972-50-2176935, roni@placesense.ai, www.placesense.ai.
Fixposition Introduces Vision-RTK 2
Fixposition has rolled out the Vision-RTK 2 industrial grade device for autonomous delivery and logistics vehicles, agriculture, mowing and landscaping machines, the company said.
Vision-RTK 2 combines GNSS technology with advanced computer vision and machine learning, the company said. Vision-RTK 2 is for applications that require centimeter- to decimeter-level accuracy, the company said.
Contact: Stella Shi, Fixposition, marketing@fixposition.com, www.fixposition.com/product
CMT Introduces Advanced Risk Telematics Solution
Cambridge Mobile Telematics has rolled out Advanced Risk to deliver next-generation telematics variables to allow auto insurers to gain insight about customer driving behavior. With Advanced Risk, insurers can analyze and measure driver risk using innovative new variables like Contextual Speed (comparing actual speed to historic road segments), Advanced Distraction (distraction beyond phone motion), Compound Events (overlapping events) and other features, the company said.
Contact: Matt Fiorentino, CMT, mfiorentino@cmtelematics.com, www.cmtelematics.com.
Parkopedia Updates App in Japan
Parkopedia has updated its free iPhone parking app in Japan to help drivers to find parking at more than 100,000 off-street locations, across 1,300 cities nationwide and more than 2,000 on-street locations in Tokyo, the company said.\
The Parkopedia app details the number of spaces, prices, hours of operation, height restrictions and if electric vehicle (EV) charge points are present, the company said. The app also helps drivers to comply with the country’s strict parking regulations and avoid expensive fines, the company said.
Contact: Adam Calland, Parkopedia, 44(0)7838219129, adam.calland@parkopedia.com, business.parkopedia.com.
Incognia Launches Location Identity Fraud Detection
Incognia has launched a new location identity fraud detection module to support mobile app security for customers across finserv, crypto, social networks, online gaming and more. Incognia’s latest solution module is Location-based Device Authorization, which prevents fraud following device change at login. Incognia delivers a risk assessment based on checking the device integrity and whether the current device location is consistent with the user’s historical location behavior pattern.
Contact: Madeline Kalicka, Karbo Communications for Incognia
(240) 427-8961, incognia@karbocom.com, www.incognia.com.
Nauro Announces New Channel Partners
Nauto has added new partners to its channel program and a new Nauto Essentials Subscription that enables fleets to accelerate their adoption of the company’s predictive-AI vehicle safety technology. With the addition of Brandmotion and Advantage Asset Tracking, Nauto now has 15 channel partners to include such fleet management companies as Donlen, leasing company Orix, and resellers through the partnership with Geotab Marketplace, the company said.
Contact: Nauto, https://www.nauto.com/partners.
People
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, 90, died May 3. Mineta served under both Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush. Many in the intelligent transportation systems industry remember him as a caring leader.
New members elected to serve on the AUVSI board are: Michelle Avary, Einride; Alan Lylte, Northrop Grumman; and Scott Newbern, AeroVironment. Members re-elected to the board include Suzanne Murtha, AECOM; Thomas Reynolds, Huntington Ingalls Industries; and Susan Roberts, Ondas Holdings.
SkyBitz has appointed Lisa Flynn to Vice President of Customer Experience. Flynn, who joined SkyBitz in 2015, has 20 years experience managing hardware deployments, software implementations and customer onboarding, the company said.
Jobs
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Sales Executive - APAC. TomTom.
Sales Representative (Japanese Speaking) - Taiwan, Australia or Japan. TomTom.
Senior Product Manager, Commercial Transport. Swift Navigation.
Director of Sales – Advanced Enterprise Telematics Solutions. Positioning Universal.
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