- Sensel, a company that is building the next wave of touch interfaces with PressureGrid technology, announced it raised $28 million
Sensel — a company founded by Ilya Rosenberg and Aaron Zarraga that is building the next wave of touch interfaces with PressureGrid technology — announced it closed the second tranche of its Series A financing. This second tranche brings the round to $28 million.
The investors in this round include Susquehanna International Group (SIG), Morningside Group, SMiT, Palm Commerce Holdings Co. Ltd, Chariot Gold Limited, SV Tech Ventures, and Innolinks Ventures. Including this round of funding, the company raised over $38 million since it was founded in 2013. And earlier investors include Green City Ventures Limited, u.life fund, Waterwood Growth Technology, Stanford’s StartX Fund, Inventec Corporation, CRCM Ventures, and Tuesday Capital.
Sensel’s technology enables new form factors (foldable, flexible), including wraparound display phones. And in this prototype (made in collaboration with Visionox), physical buttons have been replaced with force sensing multi-touch and haptics.
This funding round will be used for expanding Sensel’s production, customer support, and supply chain capabilities as it works with multiple OEMs to integrate its technology into next-generation mobile phones, notebooks, etc. And it will also allow the company to continue supporting the Morph, an award-winning tablet-sized pressure sensor with swappable interface overlays that ships to customers around the world.
Sensel’s patented touch technology offers 2 functions in a single and ultra-thin sensor: position reporting with high accuracy, and force sensing with the ability to measure force from 1g to 5kg independently for each contact point. And it responds to any object (styli, paintbrushes, fingernails, etc), works in virtually any environment (underwater and with heavy gloves), and enables new form factors (foldable and flexible). Plus it can be integrated behind a flexible AMOLED display, a non-display touchpad, steering wheel, or any surface area where a high-resolution force sensing experience is preferred.
Key Quotes:
“Whether it’s by replacing mechanical buttons on mobile devices with force sensing multi-touch and haptics, bringing force-based sensing capabilities to notebook trackpads, or enabling touch functionality on wearables to work underwater or with gloves, Sensel is driving the next generation of user interfaces. We believe Sensel’s high resolution and cost-effective touch-sensing solution will create a new era of innovations in human-machine interfaces across industries, from gaming, to robotics, industrial machinery, and medical equipment. SIG has witnessed not only the exciting development of Sensel technology, but also progress in the team’s management and maturity over the past 3 years. We are glad to join the other investors as Sensel enters a new phase of its business.”
-SIG Managing Director Joan Wang — who is joining the company board of directors
“Sensel’s technology is uniquely advantaged to transform touch interfaces for customers everywhere. We’re thrilled to support Sensel and look forward to continuing our strong relationship with the Sensel team.”
-Morningside Investment Manager Mick Sawka
“SMiT is excited to be an investor of Sensel, a company with the leading edge Force Sensing technology and its own IP. The strong funding is clear recognition of its R&D excellence and market acceptance. We look forward to the abundant opportunities in deployments including but not limited to mobile, notebooks, etc.”
-SMiT President/COO HY Shuai
“Since Sensel’s founding in 2013, we’ve worked tirelessly to create a sensor that outperforms existing touch technologies on every metric and at a lower overall cost. This financing brings us closer to our ultimate goal of improving how people experience the products they rely on every single day.”
-Sensel Co-founder and CEO Ilya Rosenberg
