videantis receives growth financing from eCAPITAL to accelerate market penetration in embedded vision and autonomous driving

Hannover, Germany, September 20th, 2017 – videantis GmbH, a leading supplier of visual computing solutions, today announced the successful closing of a growth financing round led by eCAPITAL. The visual computing technology of videantis is integrated into intelligent cameras and smart sensing systems, enabling autonomous driving, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), drones, novel smartphone cameras, and surveillance cameras. Driven by rapidly growing market demand, especially in the automotive sector, videantis will use the capital to further expand its engineering and customer support teams as well as its global marketing and sales presence.

Automotive manufacturers are adding more and more cameras, radar, and lidar sensors to make their cars safer, more comfortable, and autonomous. All this sensor data needs to be processed into meaningful information, which is a computationally very demanding task. The videantis processor enables smart sensing systems with abundant processing power, flexibility, and upgradeability, with a low power footprint. The processor’s low energy consumption allows advanced intelligent image processing to be embedded inside the camera, which would otherwise overheat.

The same videantis processor runs video compression tasks with low delay and high dynamic range, enabling automotive manufacturers to transmit the camera’s feed over Ethernet cables, significantly reducing cost and weight, while retaining high-quality video.

Founded in 1999, eCAPITAL entrepreneurial Partners AG is a German venture capital firm that supports innovative entrepreneurs in technology-driven growth sectors. videantis is already the ninth investment by the company’s latest fund, eCAPITAL IV, which was launched in 2016. The fund focuses on early and later stage investments in the areas of Software / IT, Cleantech, Industry 4.0 and New Materials.

“We are currently experiencing a strong market demand for our technology. With the support of eCAPITAL we can accelerate our market penetration and scale even faster,” says Dr. Hans-Joachim Stolberg, CEO of videantis.

“We were impressed by the market traction and customer wins the company has already achieved. videantis has a truly unique technology and we look forward to supporting the company in its further development,” adds Willi Mannheims, managing partner at eCAPITAL.

ADAS and autonomous driving only represent a fraction of the applications videantis can address. Its visual computing solution functions as a key enabler for various future applications that require smart visual sensing in order to reach their full potential. The increasing M&A activity in the semiconductor space shows that global market players from different industry verticals have recognised the strategic importance of such solutions and aim to secure their access to future markets.

About videantis

Headquartered in Hannover, Germany, videantis is a one-stop computer vision and video processor IP provider, delivering flexible computer vision, imaging and multi-standard HW/SW video coding solutions for automotive, mobile, consumer, and embedded markets. Based on a unified processor platform approach that is licensed to chip manufacturers, videantis provides tailored solutions to meet the specific needs of our customers. With core competencies of deep camera and video application expert know-how and strong SoC design and system architecture expertise, videantis serves a worldwide customer basis with a diverse range of target applications, such as advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, mobile phones, AR/VR, IoT, gesture interfacing, computational photography, in-car infotainment, and over-the-top TV. videantis has been recognized with the Red Herring Award and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award as one of the fastest growing technology companies in Germany. For more information, please visit www.videantis.com.

About eCAPITAL

eCAPITAL entrepreneurial Partners AG is a Münster-based alternative investment fund manager (AIFM) in accordance with EU-directive EuVECA. As a leading German venture capital firm, eCAPITAL has supported innovative entrepreneurs in future-oriented industries since 1999. The firm focuses on rapidly growing companies in the areas of Software / IT, Cleantech, Industry 4.0 and New Materials. Currently, eCAPITAL manages six funds with a total of 200 million euros under management.