Merck Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of pharmaceutical firm Merck Group, led a $12.4m funding round for UK-based sensor technology developer Peratech on Monday.
Tranquil Capital and venture capital firm Arie Capital also participated in the round, alongside undisclosed existing investors. Finance Yorkshire had invested $1.8m in Peratech in 2012, before returning for a $1.5m round in 2015 alongside unnamed existing backers.
Founded in 1996, Peratech has developed a proprietary force sensing technology called Quantum Tunnelling Composite that is utilised in human-machine interfaces to reduce accidental and false touches.
The technology has been integrated into more than 1 million devices including smartphones, electronic whiteboards, cordless drills and Nasa robots. The company plans to use the funds to scale up its product engineering and manufacturing efforts.
Jon Stark, CEO of Peratech, said: “The strong financial backing from our new and current investors enables Peratech to accelerate new-product integration for market leaders in a variety of applications.
“This investment also gives us the bandwidth not only to commercialise current solutions, but to complete development of transparent and higher-resolution sensor technologies with new deposition modalities for a wider range of next-generation human-machine experiences.”