Cartica AI, an autonomous perception tech developer forged from Technion spinout Cortica, secured capital from OurCrowd, Continental, Toyota and BMW in what appears to be its first publicly-disclosed round.

Cartica AI, an Israel-based autonomous perception technology developer leveraging Technion – Israel Institute of Technology research, closed a series B round of undisclosed size on Tuesday. Carmakers Toyota and BMW contributed through respective corporate venturing units Toyota AI Ventures and BMW i Ventures, and were joined in the round by automotive components manufacturer Continental and equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd. Founded in 2018, Cartica AI is working on technology that marries computer vision with deep learning models to help autonomous vehicles and driver-assistance systems interpret their surrounding landscape without requiring increased computational resources. Cartica’s approach applies unsupervised learning models to sample highway scenarios in a bid to improve the systems accuracy. The learning models were inspired by mammalian thought processes and decision making. The series B cash will help launch Cartica’s platform and scale its operations with a focus on road safety applications. It has not disclosed earlier funding. The company is an offshoot of autonomous AI company Cortica, a Technion spinout co-founded in 2007 by former postdoctoral researcher Igal Raichelgauz, who also acts as Cartica AI’s CEO. Cortica has raised about $70m in funding, according to Globes. Continental venture capital manager Nils Berkemeyer said: “Cartica pursues an entirely novel approach to autonomous perception and enables a wide range of compelling use cases that have the potential to transform mobility solutions in automotive and beyond. “We look forward to joining Cartica on its promising journey and are excited to support [Cartica AI co-founder and chief executive Igal Raichelgauz] and his passionate team with this strong syndicate of mobility investors.”

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