CAESAREA, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--infiniDome, a leading provider of anti-jamming solutions, has secured $9M in Series A funding led by Hanwha Aerospace, one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea, alongside Honeywell Ventures, and Next Gear Ventures. The funding from this round will support the deployment of infiniDome’s much sought after GPSdome2 to major defense forces including US DoD, Israeli Defense prime, South Korean Army (ROK armed forces), and Indian armed forces. This round is Honeywell Ventures’ third time investing in infiniDome, while Next Gear Ventures has continuously supported them since their Seed round. Looking ahead, infiniDome plans to continue its partnership with its strategic investors through joint development of dedicated solutions and global commercial agreements.
"We see the great value of Hanwha's investment and partnership with infiniDome. The synergy of Hanwha’s vast network and leadership in APAC and worldwide, combined with infiniDome’s innovative breakthrough and critical technology and IP, ensures a strong long term strategic relationship,” says Jasmine Topor, Founder of the Korea Israel Innovation Center. “Korea Israel Innovation Center (KIIC) is honored to be able to provide its members with tailored tech scouting and access to Israel’s innovative technologies. The synergies and partnership were immediately clear to both sides and the process was short and efficient. We look forward to continuing creating value to our members."
“This strategic investment serves as a meaningful step to support our customers in leveraging emerging technologies across a wide spectrum of platforms, including commercial and military drones,” said Kwangjin Kim, Senior Vice President, Navigation System Business Group at Hanwha Aerospace. “We look forward to building advanced capabilities that will keep our customers ahead of new threats and challenges.”
infiniDome, founded on June 22, 2016, develops GPS protection and resilient navigation solutions tailored to defend UAVs and vehicles from jamming attacks. Today they’re disrupting GPS protection for UAVs for defense/HLS and will do the same for delivery drone protection tomorrow. infiniDome’s team has recently grown to 26 employees pushing the limits in the fields of GNSS, RF, EW and UAV technologies. infiniDome’s founders include Omer Sharar (CEO), Moshe Kaplan (CTO), and Ehud Sharar (President and VP Manufacturing). Most recently, the company was recognized by AUVSI as finalists for the AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards in the Technology category for their new GPSdome2 – providing high end protection for small to medium platforms. infiniDome’s advanced solutions for protecting GPS systems in manned and unmanned critical applications, ensure accurate and continuous positioning and navigation data, even in heavily challenged GNSS environments. Together with their strategic partners, infiniDome is creating solutions which fuse data from multiple sensors including anti-jamming modules, INS, radar technologies, GPS integrity and attack monitoring tools and others to create a full navigation resiliency solution for their customers both in defense and commercial.
GPS signals orbit at 20,000km above the earth’s surface making them extremely weak and vulnerable to jamming. This poses a potential threat to various industries, which would be left dead in the water (or in the air) without GPS. Manned ground vehicles, and unmanned vehicles such as UAV, UGV, and USV all rely heavily on GPS for tracking friendly forces (identification of friend or foe) as well as navigation and autonomous flight, making them extremely vulnerable to GPS jamming attacks exposing them to a significant risk to operation, and safety. With GPS jammers readily available online for as little as $30, GPS jamming is becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide. Integration of anti-jamming solutions could easily enable GPS reliant platforms to safely operate in GPS challenged, or even denied environments. infiniDome leads the market with anti-jamming solutions that meet stringent C-SWaP (Cost, Size, Weight, and Power) limitations for mobile assets like UAS/UAV where size, weight, and power are critical, offering a real advantage over large, heavy, and very expensive traditional anti-jamming systems.
“Honeywell congratulates infiniDome on successfully closing its recent series A funding round,” said Matt Picchetti, vice president, Navigation and Sensors, Honeywell Aerospace. “Honeywell has been an early investor in infiniDome and we have developed a strong partnership through our co-development of resilient Navigation solutions. These products enable UAV operators to accomplish their missions when GNSS is unavailable and we look forward to expanding this partnership to enable GNSS resiliency across a broader set of use cases.”
“Although the defense market had been executing BVLOS and even autonomous UAV missions for quite some time, we see the demand for smaller, light, cheaper UAVs increase from year to year,” says Omer Sharar. “Together with our partners Honeywell and now with Hanwha as well, we plan to disrupt this $4B anti-jamming market, by providing solutions tailored to answer the growing demand in its largest and fastest growing segments – Class 1-3 UAVs and massive vehicles fleets.” Omer concludes by mentioning that the biggest pain point today is in defense – executing GPS-dependent missions – but the rapidly growing commercial UAV market (estimated at $30B by 2030) is waiting around the corner and will require at least the same level of protection, mainly to enable safe integration in the civilian ecosystem.
Aside from this round infiniDome has raised a total of $7M to date, on top of $1.5M from the Israel Innovation Authority. The additional funds and support of investors, which also include VentureIsrael, Kyto, Aston Partners, and Pointman I in this round, will not only enable infiniDome to deploy GPSdome2, but also design resilient navigation solutions tailored to meet future AAM (Advanced Aerial Mobility) requirements, and play a crucial role in driving commercial regulations and enhancing the safety and security of critical operations around the world.
infiniDome, an Israeli startup company out of Caesarea, founded in 2016, develops disruptive GPS protection and resilient navigation solutions tailored for defending UAVs and vehicles from jamming attacks. Its technology is built on redefined EW algorithms and its proprietary RFIC (chip) allows for its protection solutions – the GPSdome product line – to have the best performance vs. C-SWaP (Cost, Size, Weight and Power) balance in the world. Backed by Honeywell Aerospace, Hanwha Aerospace and other key investors, infiniDome disrupts the defense and government UAV and vehicles protection space today and will do the same to the commercial UAV\UAM space tomorrow with leading protection and monitoring solutions.
A subsidiary of Hanwha Group, a Fortune Global 500 company, Hanwha Aerospace is the largest aerospace and defense company in South Korea. With the reputation of South Korea’s only aircraft engine maker and a global provider of advanced military and commercial aircraft engines, Hanwha Aerospace is spearheading the country’s space projects such as KSLV-II.
Hanwha Aerospace has merged its subsidiary Hanwha Defense, the maker of world-renown K9 Self-Propelled Howitzer and Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicle, to expand its footprint in the global defense market. The company has also acquired the defense business division of Hanwha Corporation to develop and provide ammunition, precision-guided missiles, and other cutting-edge weapons systems.
Honeywell Ventures invests in early-stage, high-growth companies from around the world that have emerging and disruptive technologies. We concentrate on companies that could scale faster with access to our customers, channels, intellectual property, advanced manufacturing capabilities and global presence. We invest in a wide variety of sectors, including those aligned with our businesses.
Next Gear Ventures is an Israeli early-stage venture capital fund that invests in the most promising talent in smart and sustainable mobility technology. NGV leverages its close relationships and years of expertise to identify cutting-edge technologies that are shaping the future of transportation. With a proven track record of successful investments in the mobility sector, NGV is the go-to choice for investors looking to make a meaningful impact in the world of sustainable transportation. Their portfolio of companies encompasses a diverse range of innovations, from electric vehicles and autonomous driving systems to urban mobility solutions and shared transportation platforms.
The Korea Israel Innovation Center (KIIC) is the exclusive hub in Israel for selected leading South Korean corporations & prominent investors looking to gain a competitive edge via Israeli innovation.KIIC’s selected group of Members have a direct and accessible full deal sourcing, partnership development and research capabilities tailored to their areas of interest. Using the Center’s extensive network in Israel, KIIC’s Members gain access to cutting edge innovation, partnership opportunities and club deals with leading Korean and Global VCs and more.
