PLEASANTON — Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a pioneer in software-defined radar, has secured a $17.5 million Series B funding round. The round is led by Cota Capital with contributions from GM Ventures, the venture capital arm of General Motors Co., and RTX Ventures, the venture capital arm of RTX. This collaboration marks a transformative step in enhancing roadway safety (benefiting pedestrians, drivers and all other traffic participants) and defense radar systems.
NPS will use the investment to further develop and apply its award-winning Atomic Sensing Platform to automotive radar technology. The platform provides significantly enhanced, reliable radar resolution and groundbreaking precision. The improved performance stems from a new mathematical framework known as the Atomic Norm (AN), revolutionizing how the raw sensor data is processed into relevant information.
“This investment confirms the value of our vision and technology,” said Dr. Behrooz Rezvani, Founder and CEO of NPS. “By harnessing the potential of our newly developed radar technology, we can potentially achieve performance enhancements that are over 10 times greater than current radar capabilities, putting us at the forefront of revolutionizing the $28 billion radar market. Our radar software works with all radar hardware and significantly improves the performance of existing sensing platforms with lower cost and more efficiency.”
The NPS software-defined radar, SDR, achieves near maximum likelihood performance in detection — meaning, the NPS proprietary software achieves close to what is theoretically possible with existing radar sensors. This advancement in radar technology enables clearer and earlier detection.
“Behrooz and his team are achieving new benchmarks for advanced radar sensing technology,” said Bobby Yazdani, Founder and Partner of Cota Capital. “We recognize the significant impact NPS can have in the fields of mobility and defense systems, and our investment reflects Cota Capital’s commitment to ground-breaking innovation.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) proposed rule changes in May 2023 aim to significantly reduce roadway fatalities by strengthening regulations around automatic emergency braking (AEB) and pedestrian AEB (PAEB). NPS’s technology is poised to further assist companies and suppliers in meeting these new standards, using less complex and more reliable sensors.
“NPS’s continued focus on enhancing defense radar systems exemplifies the commitment that is needed to transform the aerospace and defense landscape,” said Dan Ateya, President and Managing Director at RTX Ventures. “To protect against tomorrow’s threats, RTX Ventures looks to invest in companies working to solve the most complex challenges today and the NPS automotive radar technology does just that.”
