Date: Jan 02, 2019 Source: (
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Bridger Photonics, Inc., a Montana-based company founded in 2006, providing precision LiDAR solutions to enable new capabilities and improved efficiency for industrial sensor applications, closed its Series A funding round in November 2018 where ZEISS was the sole minority investor of the round.
The purpose of the investment is to enable Bridger to develop and commercialise a broadened set of addressable applications for its FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) LiDAR technology.
"We are thrilled to join forces with Zeiss. The investment by ZEISS enables us to pursue targeted business development for our core markets such as Industrial Metrology and aerial surveillance for Oil & Gas, and Energy Infrastructure. Leveraging the broader assets and network of the ZEISS Group, we will also explore additional applications in advanced sensing and quality control", says Pete Roos, President and CEO of Bridger Photonics, in a press release.
In going beyond conventional LiDAR technology, the FMCW approach has the ability to measure not only distances to objects in the plus 100-meter range with high precision and low power, but also relative velocities. Reliable generation and software processing of these kinds of 3D maps of sensor data are believed to be key enablers for a variety of mapping and navigation tasks in the industrial domain.
For ZEISS the investment is a further part of its venture strategy to promote market-shaping business models with innovative partners, especially in the areas of digital twins and simulations. Philipp Strack, Head of ZEISS Ventures, explains: "We are very excited to support Bridger's journey. We believe now is a good time for Bridger Photonics and the entire team to seize the opportunity for growth, as many complementary technology building blocks, such as Nanostructured Optics and Machine Learning, are now achieving maturity and adoption in the market".
