By Gabby Chen

SoPhoton Tech (识光芯科), a Chinese LiDAR chip startup, announced that it has completed Pre-A round of funding without specifying the amount raised, JW Insights reported on January 13.

Baidu Venture (百度风投) is the lead investor in this round of funding. Inovance Industrial Investment (汇川产投), PDSTI(浦科投资), Falcon Capital (猎鹰投资) and Xinhe Capital (芯禾资本) also took part.

Founded in 2021, SoPhoton Tech is based in Suzhou, eastern China’s Jiangsu Province. It provides high-performance and low-cost single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) SoC and related direct time-of-flight (dToF) 3D sensing technologies for applications such as autonomous driving, robotics, and XR.

SoPhoton Tech has raised nearly RMB100 million ($14.85 million) in angel round and Pre-A round of financing. It has received orders from leading Tier 1 and robotics end customers, according to Baidu Venture.

With the funds raised, the company will accelerate mass production of its current products and develop new generation of products, said the JW Insights report.