Tonbo Imaging raises USD 17 mn in Series B funding

Bengaluru-based imaging-design start-up Tonbo Imaging today said it has raised USD 17 million (around Rs 109 crore) in Series B funding led by WRV Capital with participation from Qualcomm Ventures, Edelweiss Private Equity and Artiman Ventures.
The company aims to use the capital to scale its growth as a designer and manufacturer of advanced night vision imaging systems for defence, surveillance and transportation safety markets.
"Our technology leverages the power of computational imaging on consumer electronics hardware to provide our customers with imaging packages that are needed for harshest of military applications," Tonbo Imaging CEO Arvind Lakshmikumar said.
He further said, while this technology has been military qualified, it has also been built to move into mainstream commercial applications.

"We are working actively to see large-scale adoption of this technology for vehicle safety and other autonomous operations," he said.
With this investment, Ganapathy Subramaniam from WRV Capital and Pranav Parikh from Edelweiss Private Equity have joined Tonbo's board of directors.

"Tonbo will use the financing to expand its global reach in defence markets, accelerate product growth and innovation in automotive safety markets and continue evaluating strategic acquisition opportunities in specialised technology areas of lasers and photonics," a company release said.
Since its Series A funding from Artiman Ventures in 2012, Tonbo has grown its staff to over 170 specialised imaging, machine learning and computer vision engineers located in Bengaluru, Palo Alto, Greece, Poland and Singapore.

Tonbo's products are deployed across 25 countries addressing needs spanning surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting across ground, air and naval applications. It counts among its customers, global military forces, Tier I defence and homeland security agencies.
Veda Corporate Advisors, was the sole advisor to Tonbo Imaging.