- Advanced Navigation announced that it raised $13 million in Series A funding led by the CSIRO Innovation Fund
Advanced Navigation announced it has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Main Sequence Ventures’ CSIRO Innovation Fund alongside Brick & Mortar Ventures and In-Q-Tel. This round of funding will enable Advanced Navigation to globally expand and accelerate R&D programs around robotics, navigation, and sensor technologies.
“Incumbents in the navigation technology industry are still developing equipment based on an algorithm developed in 1967 – we’re bringing an age-old industry into the 21st century,” said Advanced Navigation co-founder and co-CEO Xavier Orr. “We founded Advanced Navigation out of that necessity to change an industry stuck in the past. What we’ve developed allows businesses to do incredible new things that weren’t previously possible, powering next-generation applications across land, sea, and air.”
Advanced Navigation is known for building AI-based navigational technologies and robotics used by four out of the five biggest car manufacturers and nine out of the ten largest defense companies, including multinational organizations like NASA, Boeing, Airbus, and Tesla and racing yachts like Oats XI and Oracle Team USA.
“There are tremendous benefits for partnering with each of our investors,” added Advanced Navigation co-founder and co-CEO Chris Shaw. “There are tremendous benefits for partnering with each of our investors,” added Advanced Navigation’s co-founder and co-CEO Chris Shaw. “Main Sequence Ventures are deep-tech specialists and will give us a huge opportunity to work with governments and tap into universities working on revolutionary technologies. The US is a key growth market for us, and working with Brick & Mortar helps us capitalize on that. These guys are the domain experts in the construction industry and will open doors for us. The additional funds will allow us to continue investing in best-in-class research and development in this area, for defense and commercial applications globally, and double down on our growth in the US and other global markets.”
In conjunction with this round of funding, Main Sequence Ventures partner Martin Duursma and Brick & Mortar Ventures principal Curtis Rodgers are joining the Advanced Navigation board of directors.
“Advanced Navigation is an incredible and untold Australian success, already powering many autonomous and robotics capabilities we will see over the decades to come,” explained Duursma. “We really like the way that the company collaborates with Australian universities to develop new and groundbreaking product capabilities. There’s no one quite doing what the company is doing today and we’re thrilled to have Advanced Navigation join the Main Sequence portfolio and help them expand even faster across the world.”
Advanced Navigation’s systems are based on an AI algorithm that allows them to be much smaller and more reliable along with being significantly cheaper. Launched in Sydney, Australia in 2012 by Orr and Shaw, Advanced Navigation was created to commercialize thesis research into AI neural network-based inertial navigation. And the first product met the market with success plus the company rapidly added a portfolio of navigation offerings and moved into a diverse range of deep tech fields like underwater acoustics, GPS, radio frequency systems, sensors, and robotics.
“The ultra-precise navigation and positioning capabilities of Advanced Navigation’s technologies have a number of potential applications in construction and adjacent industries,” commented Rodgers. “We’re excited to work with Xavier, Chris, and the team to bring these possibilities to life on the global stage.”
