BMW and Baidu are among the investors in sensor technology developer Lunewave's seed round, which will go towards building autonomous vehicle sensors based on the Luneburg principle.

Lunewave, a US-based car sensor and antenna developer co-founded by a University of Arizona professor, has secured $5m in seed funding from backers including subsidiaries of internet company Baidu and carmaker BMW. The deal consisted of $3.8m from an equity round led by McCombs Fraser and backed by respective corporate venturing subsidiaries for Baidu and BMW, Baidu Ventures and BMW i Ventures. Ekistic Ventures, Urban.us, Plug and Play Tech Center, Shanda Capital and Lighthouse Ventures also supplied Lunewave with equity, while US government-owned research agency National Science Foundation provided a $1.3m grant. Founded in 2017, Lunewave is working on sensors and antennas for autonomous vehicles that can pick up more comprehensive data than alternative technologies such as computer vision or Lidar. Lunewave’s approach is modelled on the Luneburg antenna, a spherical lens that achieves focus through decreasing refractive indexes spun radially from its centre, meaning Lunewave products could support a 360-degree field-of-view. The sensors will be manufactured with 3D printers, and Lunewave expects to output 1,000 each day from a single industrial-sized printer. Lunewave will use the cash to bring its idea closer to market. Lunewave received $100,000 in funding for taking part in the third cohort of the Urban-X accelerator, run by BMW’s Mini subsidiary and Urban.Us. The company subsequently joined BMW’s Startup Garage initiative, which allows participants to become a supplier of BMW once their products have been launched.

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