China’s LiDAR firm Leantool closes Series A financing

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Wuhan Leantool Sensor Technology Co., Ltd. (“Leantool”), a Chinese LiDAR developer, recently closed its Series A financing with tens of millions of yuan raised, according to a press release.

The fresh round was backed by Changjiang River Industrial Investment Group and Yichang Industrial Investment Holding Group. The proceeds from this round will mainly be used for Leantool's technology business deployment, team expansion, and production capacity increase.

Founded in April 2017, Leantool is an R&D startup providing intelligent sensing products and solutions based on photoelectric technology and with LiDAR as the core.

Trochilus R otary LiDAR; photo credit: Leantool

The company's products include mechanical rotary LiDAR and solid-state LiDAR based on the ToF (Time of Flight) principle, mainly used in the fields of autonomous navigation & positioning and obstacle avoidance for various types of robot platforms, as well as autonomous driving.

In the field of autonomous driving, Leantool has successfully launched the YDF1550-1W series pulsed fiber laser operating at the 1,550nm eye-safe wavelength, which meets the stringent requirements of high-end laser radar systems for driverless vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems. Small-scale verification with key customers has been completed.

Leantool said, relying on existing technological capabilities, it will continue its vertical R&D path of "chip → device → module → sensor → solution" to gradually expand its market presence in the optoelectronic sensing market. The company aims to achieve compound applications of optoelectronic perception technology in multiple scenarios and fields, from indoor to outdoor, from low speed to high speed, from closed to open, while ensuring high performance, reliability, and reasonable costs.

Leantool will also begin pilot projects in smart transportation, smart cities, autonomous driving, and other related fields, ultimately powering the entire autonomous driving industry.