Swift Navigation, a San Francisco-based tech firm developing GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and precise positioning technology for automotive ADAS (advanced driver-assistance systems) and autonomy, industrial machine control, commercial transportation, mobile and emerging mass-market applications, has completed a $100 million financing round.
The Series D Round was led by SK Inc and Potentum Partners with strong support from Swift’s existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Eclipse Ventures and EPIQ Capital Group.
The Series D Round included new investors: FM Capital, OVN Capital, TELUS Ventures, TWM Venture Co., Buckley Ventures, Schox Venture Capital and additional independent investors. To date, the company has raised over $200 million in funding.
Timothy Harris, CEO of Swift, says: “We have an amazing group of investors behind us and are honored to see the many customers who are using Swift technology at such incredible scale as they build the future of transportation and automation.
“Thank you to our loyal partners and investors at NEA, Eclipse and EPIQ and we welcome the support of our new investors to help us deliver precise positioning across the world.”
Subeom Lee, of SK, says: “We are delighted to be the lead investor for this financing transaction as part of our investment strategy in high-tech software companies.
“Swift’s high-precision positioning solution is best suited for automotive, smartphone, robotic and future smart devices with its cutting-edge, cost-efficient and hardware-agnostic technology. We believe that Swift will contribute to advancing the new era of driverless technology.”
David Simons, founding partner of Potentum Partners, says: “Centimeter-level position accuracy on a continent-wide scale is impressive enough, but what really excites us is Swift’s ability to provide it with extraordinary reliability, putting absolute-position data at the core of safety-critical features in automotive, automation and machine control.
“Tim and his team have built an impressive business and we are thrilled to be a part of it.”
Since its Series C Round of financing, Swift has refined its global, centimeter-accurate precise positioning service and expanded its coverage across continents to meet the needs of an on-demand economy requiring higher levels of autonomy.
Swift’s customers span the globe and include automotive OEMs and Tier 1s, last-mile delivery providers, mobile handset and application providers and those building rail, industrial machine control and IoT platforms for mass-market applications.
Swift’s technology is now powering several of the largest automotive and commercial vehicle fleets on the road today, supporting enhanced navigation and ADAS.
Swift’s technology improves vehicle positioning for a more efficient user experience and streamlined routing when navigating, as well as being a critical component of the ADAS system and improved safety, all resulting in cost savings.
The accuracy delivered by standard GNSS is 3-30 meters, while Swift’s precise positioning solution delivers accuracy in centimeters.
Swift offers a comprehensive GNSS platform, consisting of Skylark, Swift’s global wide area, cloud-based GNSS precise positioning service, Starling, Swift’s receiver-agnostic client software positioning engine and a wide variety of both Swift and third-party compatible receiver options.
Swift’s platform works with single and multi-frequency, multi-constellation automotive and commercial-grade GNSS measurement engines and chipsets, offering companies a choice in selecting the best components for their autonomous sensor suite.
Skylark is now a global network, delivering real-time, secure and highly-available precise location data across the contiguous US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a growing number of countries worldwide, including Canada and Taiwan – to deliver absolute positioning at the continental scale required by today’s safety-critical applications.
Skylark has been independently rated against other CORS (Continuously Operating Reference Station) networks as providing the highest levels of safety, accuracy and availability.
Recognizing that each industry uses precise positioning differently, Swift has built specific software and receiver platforms for each application – from automotive to mobile to industrial machine control – to solve the unique problems that precision location poses for them.
Swift’s technology is also at the leading edge of improvements to mobile phone positioning, supporting new applications, such as navigation, traffic and augmented reality.
Swift supports customers in tracking and improving safety across continent-wide rail networks, it provides precise position (enhanced RTK) to next generation machine control and guidance systems for agriculture, construction and robotics and a host of other applications across both emerging and traditional GNSS markets.
