Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a $121m series D round for US-based camera developer Light yesterday, investing alongside camera producer Leica Camera.
Light has developed a compact 52-megapixel camera that combines optical and computational imaging technology to capture an image at several focal lengths, combining more than 10 simultaneous images into one high-resolution photograph.
The company has also created a photo processing and editing app called Lumen, allowing users to fine-tune the resolution and adjust the focus of each photo. The first phone to utilise the technique is set to be commercially released later this year.
The funding will support the expansion of Light’s imaging technologies into the security, automotive, aerial, robotic and industrial imaging sectors. Vision Fund will provide its share of the funding in tranches dependent on certain conditions.
Dave Grannan, co-founder and CEO of Light, said: “Light’s technology is a revelation, showing that several small, basic camera modules, combined with highly powerful software, can produce images that rival those produced by cameras costing and weighing orders of magnitude more.
“We are just getting started. Having the support of SoftBank Vision Fund as a strategic investor means this technology will see more of the world sooner than we could have ever imagined.”
Andreas Kaufmann, chairman of Leica’s supervisory board, added: “With the rapid development of the computational photography, partnering with the innovators at Light ensures Leica to extend its tradition of excellence into the computational photography era.”
Light has now raised $186m since it was founded in 2015, $30m of which came in a mid-2016 series C round led by GV, a subsidiary of internet and technology group Alphabet, and backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, CRV and private investor Paul E. Jacobs.
CRV, Bessemer, Jacobs and fellow angel investor Sanjay Jha provided $9.7m of funding for the company in 2014, before joining contract manufacturer Foxconn’s FIH Mobile division, StepStone Group and CrunchFund for a $25m series B the following year.