FocalPoint, a UK-based providing next-gen positioning solutions for mobiles, wearables and vehicles, has closed a multi-round Series C funding round of up to £23 million from a consortium of investors co-led by Molten Ventures (which also invested in Altruistiq and CoachHub) and Gresham House.
The latest funding round follows FocalPoint’s announcement of getting investment from the European Space Agency earlier this year. Back then, it announced that the funds will be used to create a live demonstration and rapid prototyping system to speed up its activities in the automotive and mobile sectors.
Aggressive growth plans
FocalPoint will use the fund to continue with their mission to revolutionise the accuracy of GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). It also plans to scale up customer support operations to meet the growing demands of equipment and chipset manufacturers. FocalPoint plans to grow its R&D teams and pursue opportunities in other radio technologies, including 5G and WiFi.
FocalPoint CEO Scott Pomerantz commented: “We are delighted at this show of confidence in FocalPoint from new and established investors amidst a challenging market backdrop. Our IP portfolio is strong, this injection of capital will enable us to move faster to meet the demands of several big customers in the US and South East Asia, and to accelerate our IP portfolio growth.”
FocalPoint Founder, President and CTO Ramsey Faragher commented: “It has been an amazing experience to grow this company from an idea in my head to an established and world-leading GNSS technology provider. As we continue to add more GNSS customers and partners to our list, I’m excited to be now developing further IP to grow our footprint into other radio technologies and even larger markets.”
Aims to improve positioning solutions
Founded in 2015 by Dr. Ramsey Faragher in Cambridge as a spinout from Cambridge University, FocalPoint was developed to improve navigation placement and better meet the needs of organisations and individuals.
FocalPoint’s groundbreaking Supercorrelation software enables a new class of satellite positioning receiver. This can measure the directions of the incoming signals and provide more accurate positioning in cities. These new receivers ignore reflected signals and fake “spoofed” signals.
Criminal networks, maritime pirates, and fraudsters use spoofing to broadcast fake satellite signals and confuse the receiver. This is a critical threat to business and consumers, particularly as the criminals become more sophisticated and the cost of spoofing technology comes down.
Supercorrelation technology can instantly detect fake signals as spoofers and ignore those signals and pinpoint where the signal is coming from. It is touted to be the only consumer-grade product in the market capable of these unique performance characteristics.