Canesta Raises $16M, Quanta Joins Investment Round

Yahoo, VentureBeat: Canesta announced it has raised $16M in additional capitalization. Joining returning investors Carlyle Growth Partners, Hotung Venture Group, and Venrock are two new strategic investors – Quanta Computer, the world’s largest manufacturer of notebook computers, and SMSC, a mixed-signal ICs vendor.

“The emergence of 3-D ‘natural’ interfaces in PCs – such as ‘touchless’ gesture controls – as well as other immersive applications, has been inevitable,” commented Jim Spare president and CEO of Canesta. “The implied endorsement and strong interest in 3-D imaging technology by the world’s largest personal computer ODM will encourage other players to adopt this game-changing technology,” said Spare.

In February this year, Hitachi and Canesta demonstrated a television with 3-D interface and natural “gesture-based” controls (ISW link).

Some of the applications made possible by Canesta’s 3-D electronic perception chips and technology include:

• Hands-free gesture control (for new user experiences that are more convenient and “fun”);
• Robust and accurate facial recognition for user identification and security;
• Background substitution for video conferencing and “virtual sets” (to enable every consumer to have video conferencing and content-creation capabilities that are currently only available to professionals with large budgets);
• Avatar control for 3-D virtual communities (increasing ease-of-use and improving accessibility to a wider audience);
• Augmented reality;
• Immersive personalized advertising;

For several video examples, see Canesta videos. The news log about Canesta can be found here.

Update: SMSC has invested $2M in Canesta. SMSC and Canesta have agreed to collaborate in the definition of 3-D camera solutions whereby SMSC can combine its connectivity technologies and systems expertise with Canesta 3-D sensor devices and software to accelerate the adoption of this technology. The two companies intend to create economic, integrated solutions to add 3-dimensional depth-perception to automotive, PC, TV, consumer electronics and other communications devices.