BrightWay Raised $24 Million from Koito Group

26 June, 2019

BrightWay is an Elbit's spin off that was established in 2011 to provide camera-based Advanced Driver Assistance Systems using unique Active Gated Imaging Technology

Elbit Systems’ subsidiary, BrightWay Vision, has raised a $25 million from Koito Manufacturing Co., and Magenta Venture Partners. The lead investor was Koito who bought  36.92% of the company for $24 million. BrightWay is an Elbit’s spin off that was established in 2011 as an effort to find new markets for certain military technologies owned by Elbit. The company’s patented system, BrightEye, combines sensing and laser illumination technologies for the automobile industry, to generate a clear long-range image of the road ahead at night and in low visibility conditions.

It is based on Active Gated Imaging Technology developed in Elbit. AGIT is a fast gated-camera equipped with a unique Gated-CMOS sensor produced in TowerJazz, and a laser pulsed Illuminator, synchronized in the time domain. It record images of a certain range of interest which are then processed by computer vision algorithms. It is used for camera-based Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and provides high quality 3D imaged in low/high light-level and harsh weather conditions.

For Koito, this ia a strategic investment. The Japanese Automotive lighting solutions provider, announced plans to utilize BrightWay’s technology in its future products road map. “Koito has decided to invest in BWV and strengthen our relationship in order to promote our R&D of high-precision camera systems. BWV’s  Gated Imaging Technology is superior at night imaging, less susceptible to weather conditions such as rain and fog and capable of distance measurement even with mono cameras.

“By integrating Koito’s automotive lighting technology and BWV’s camera technology, we will work together to conduct research on next-generation automotive lighting equipment.” Tokio based Koito is a major supplier for the Automotive industry. Koito Group consists of 32 companies located in 12 countries worldwide. It employs approximately 24,600 employees, and had achieves annual sales of $7.7 billion in fiscal year 2018.

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Posted in: Automotive , Deals and Investments , ElectroOptics , News