Newsight Imaging Secures $7 Million Series A Financing Round Led by Infinity Capital
Four-year-old CMOS image sensor startup to enter booming spectral markets and aggressively accelerate sales of its newest solutions for at-home virus detection and its 3D technology solutions for automotive and machine vision applications
ECOMOTION CONFERENCE, May 18, 2020, Israel — Newsight Imaging, the CMOS image sensor chip maker for 3D machine vision and spectral analysis applications announced today it completed a $7 million Series A round of financing. Infinity Capital led the investment round with the participation of Dr. George So. The investment brings Newsight’s total funding, including governmental grants, to $15 million and will help the company aggressively expand its sales and marketing efforts as well as broaden and accelerate product development. Ms. Claire Zhao, VP of Infinity Capital, already joined Newsight’s Board of Directors, and Dr. George So, Owner of AIinnoBio HK, will join as a board observer.
The Series A financing builds on the great momentum that Newsight has demonstrated in the past year, with meeting major milestones, such as successfully completing a prototype design collaboration with ZKW, a leading automotive lighting system, the growing number of design wins of the NSI1000 with demonstrated eTOF™ enhanced-Time-Of-Flight capability, and the successful pilots and engagements in the spectral analysis field with Mekorot, the national water company of Israel, and recently its successful pilot of at-home virus detection reference design tested at a leading Israeli medical center. Dr. George So, a seasoned entrepreneur with vast experiences gained on working with Fortune 500 companies as well as local reputable business conglomerates, strategic investment in Newsight was bundled with licensing of Newsight’s technology and commercial agreement to buy Newsight products for its HK based biotech company AIinnoBio, which develops spectral analysis solutions, such as an at-home virus detection device.
“We are very optimistic about this Israeli start-up. First of all, their cutting-edge technological advantages, the CIS chips with high frame rate, which can do a lot of firsts in the industry. We are so impressed by Newsight’s ability to capture market opportunities, from the autonomous driving industry, machine vision, spectral water detection to Coronavirus detection, the company always remains highly sensitive and flexible to the market, and is always prepared to face new challenges.” said Claire Zhao, VP of Infinity Capital.
Dr. George So, Owner of AIinnoBio added “I am extremely excited to be a part of the team to witness and also to participate in the development of applications for the chip, in particular, the possibilities of developing home diagnostic devices for viral and bacterial infections. The ability to detect specific spectral signatures of viruses and bacteria, coupled with the ease of sample preparations and portability of the diagnostic device, will significantly impact community prevention of any pandemics”.
Newsight’s sensors have unique qualities, such as very high frame-rate (up to 100,000 frames-per-second on a single line), an AI-ready multi-set feature that enables the sensor to move from a range detection to machine vision picture from frame to frame, in-pixel accumulation, support of multi-triangulation and its embedded eTOF™ technology that allows acquisition of a full resolution depth imaging scene. Newsight has also developed its spectrometer-on-chip solution, which captures 400-1100 nm ultra-accurate spectral signatures and is the base for game-changing solutions for water monitoring and for at-home immediate virus and remote health detection devices. Newsight will soon offer a full development kit, called SpectraLIT™, for spectral analysis device and sensing solution makers who want to test Newsight’s solution and build their own device based on Newsight’s superior platform and chips.
“We welcome our new investors to the Newsight family,” said Newsight Imaging’s Chief Executive Officer Eli Assoolin. “While the world came to an almost complete stop due to the Corona Virus situation, Newsight’s team worked intensively to utilize our powerful machine vision chip capabilities with recent technology for water and beverage detection and built a patent-pending device solution for at-home virus detection that is expected to enable fast recovery to normal market conditions and become a key factor that will allow normal life to resume. With Infinity’s guidance and with Dr. George’s strategic partnership, we are confident about Newsight’s scaling and will continue now to round-B fundraising, which is supposed to bring the company to much greater revenues and to new exciting markets”.
About Newsight’s spectral development kit “SpectraLIT™”
SpectraLIT™️ is a development kit based on Newsight’s spectrometer-on- chip, allows the identification of any material between 400-700 wavelength, using light only in a matter of seconds. The next generation of SpectraLIT™️ will be able to support wavelength between 400-1100. The kit will allow diagnostics and analytical companies to break into the market with an immediate, portable, and low-cost diagnosis device.
About Infinity Capital
Infinity Equity Management Co., Ltd. (Infinity Capital) is an affiliate of Infinity Group, a leading investment management company from Israel. Infinity Capital operates the core businesses in Greater China, which mainly involves a domestic RMB fund and cross-border M&A. At present, the investment fund of Infinity in China has nearly 5 billion RMB invested in TMT (science and technology, media, communications), health and life sciences, energy conservation and environmental protection, precision manufacturing and new materials, and other areas of the key layout.
About Dr. George So
Dr. George So is a seasoned entrepreneur with vast experiences in working for Fortune 500 companies as well as local reputable business conglomerates. Since 2011, he has been investing in start-ups in Hi-Tech and internet-related businesses, as well as businesses in green energy. In 2018, he was awarded “Top Ten Innovative Chinese Economic Figures” at the “16th Annual Chinese Economic Figures” ceremony held in Beijing and co-organized by the “Global Times” and the “China-Asian Economic Development Association.” In 2019, Dr. So was awarded the “First Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Excellent Entrepreneurial Legacy Award” by the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Economic and Trade Association” in Hong Kong. In 2020, he was invited by the “Former Chief Executive of HKSAR Government,” “Vice Chairman of National Chinese people Consultative Conference, PRC” as the advisor to “Our Hong Kong Foundation”. Dr. George So is also the Founding Chairman of the “Hong Kong Innovation Association” as well as the Honorary Advisor of the “Hong Kong International Blockchain and Financial Association.”
For more information, please contact michal.cooper@nstimg.com
