Automotive Tech Leaders Join Forces as Terranet Leads holoride’s Double-Digit Million Euro Investment Round and Enters into Strategic Alliance.
Munich, Germany and Lund, Sweden – April 22, 2021 – holoride, the company advancing the future of in-vehicle media and winners of the SXSW Pitch 2021, today announced it raised its Series A investing round, collecting €10 million in first closing and earning the company a €30 million valuation.
The round was led by Terranet AB, developers of advanced driver-assistance software (ADAS) that specifically addresses safety and comfort through precise, fast, and intelligent sensor technology. Terranet invested the equivalent of EUR 3.2 million in holoride’s share issue corresponding to 10.84% of the total number of shares and votes. Other co-investors in this round include a group of Chinese financial and automotive technology investors, orchestrated by Jingjing Xu, an investment professional specializing in partnerships and go-to-market strategies for China. Amongst this syndicate is Multi-Dimensional Connectivity (MDC) Limited, a leading investor in the automotive industry and shareholder of Aston Martin. The round of investors is completed with Schell Games, the largest full-service educational and entertainment game development company in the United States and existing shareholder Audi.
holoride will use the capital raised to ramp up talent acquisition, expand its offering for the content creator community and strengthen its international position as it prepares for its market launch next year.
“We’re excited that cutting-edge automotive technology and premium content creation are represented in our new, expanded group of investors, as well as the core markets of our business with excellent partners from Europe, China, and the U.S.” said Nils Wollny, CEO and co-founder of holoride. “Integrating Terranet’s capabilities to generate a low latency view of the world into our tech stack can significantly enhance the holoride experience and become our next leap forward in changing in-vehicle experiences for good.”
holoride is building the world’s first immersive in-vehicle media platform. By processing motion and location-based data in real-time, holoride enables the creation of content that adjusts to travel time and route, and as a result, is perfectly in sync with the passenger’s journey.
As part of its investment, Terranet, whose VoxelFlow™ was originally designed to address safety concerns for ADAS vehicles, will work with holoride to enhance the real-time, in-car XR experience by incorporating aspects of its versatile sensor tech software to ensure precision, speed, and intelligence as vehicles move safely and quickly through their environments. The cooperation between the two respected category leaders opens a new vertical for Terranet’s VoxelFlow™ technology by reusing 3D event data for XR applications, like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
Terranet’s attractive investment position in the rapidly-growing automotive entertainment sector expands VoxelFlow’s™ addressable market beyond ADAS and into Infotainment. In addition to delivering ultra-fast data points to a vehicle to keep passengers and pedestrians safe, VoxelFlow™ can send those data points to holoride-enabled smart devices, cutting down Terranet’s lead time-to-market while creating an XR subset application for the technology. This opens opportunities for Terranet to supply the car industry with a software stack for navigation systems, sensors as well as in-vehicle entertainment systems, expanding the brand beyond ADAS.
“Ever since we met holoride and Nils Wollny at its launch and joint demo with Disney and Audi during CES 2019, we’ve known there’s great opportunity to collaborate on joint campaigns and product rollouts,” said Pär-Olof Johannesson, CEO of Terranet. “This collaboration enables Terranet to expand our addressable market while also getting access to the leading automotive manufacturers that will be using holoride. Combining our ultra-fast 3D sensor technology with holoride’s gaming and XR experiences will revolutionize the everyday car trip, providing more meaningful experiences for passengers. As a key investor (and collaborating partner) we strongly believe in holoride as a superior risk return investment.”
As a part of the deal Johannesson will join holoride’s Advisory Board. Terranet’s Chairman of the Nomination Committee has also undertaken to ensure that Wollny is elected to the company’s board.
“With the upcoming market introduction of holoride and our ambition to integrate it in our cars in 2022, we are taking the in-car experience to the next level and leverage the way of how we are delighting our customers.” commented Sven Schuwirth, Senior Vice President Digital Experience & Business at Audi. “That perfectly fits to the Audi strategy to extend our digital ecosystem as well as our ambition to offer our customers the best experience.”
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Michaela Berglund
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About holoride
German startup holoride creates an entirely new media category for passengers by connecting Extended Reality (XR) content with data points from the vehicle in real-time. These data points include physical feedback, like acceleration and steering, traffic data, as well as travel route and time. holoride technology provides a new type of immersion into any kind of VR content, creating a breathtaking, immersive experience, and significantly reducing motion sickness. The tech startup was founded at the end of 2018 in Munich, Germany by Nils Wollny, Marcus Kuehne, Daniel Profendiner, and Audi, who holds a minority stake in the startup. It was hailed “Best of CES” four times (Las Vegas, January 2019), recognized as one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019 by TIME Magazine, and is part of the global innovation platform “STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play.” In 2021, holoride went on to win the prestigious SXSW Pitch and was also awarded as Best in Show.
For more information, please visit https://www.holoride.com/
Media Contacts
Kiley Ribordy
Public Relations Manager, Walker Sands
+1-312-267-0064
kiley.ribordy@walkersands.com
Rudolf Baumeister
Senior Marketing & Communications Manager, holoride
+49-174-169-6573
rudi@holoride.com
About Terranet
Terranet develops software for radio-based solutions and three-dimensional image analysis for advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous vehicles (ADAS and AV). In-line with Scandinavia’s rich history of bringing innovative safety measures to the automobile industry, Terranet is pioneering breakthrough safety technology for the ADAS and AV industries at its headquarters in Lund, Sweden and its development sites in Kyiv, Ukraine and in Stuttgart, Germany. Terranet Holding AB (publ) is listed on the Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market (Nasdaq: TERRNT-B.ST). https://terranet.se/en/
Media Contact
Michaela Berglund
michaela.berglund@terranet.se
+46 723388288
Sam Aurilia @FischTank PR
terranet@fischtankpr.com
About Audi
The Audi Group, with its brands Audi, Ducati and Lamborghini, is one of the most successful manufacturers of automobiles and motorcycles in the premium segment. It is present in more than 100 markets worldwide and produces at 19 locations in 12 countries. 100 percent subsidiaries of AUDI AG include Audi Sport GmbH (Neckarsulm, Germany), Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. (Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy), and Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. (Bologna/Italy). In 2020, the Audi Group delivered to customers about 1.693 million automobiles of the Audi brand, 7,430 sports cars of the Lamborghini brand and 48,042 motorcycles of the Ducati brand. In the 2020 fiscal year, AUDI AG achieved total revenue of €50.0 billion and an operating profit before special items of €2.7 billion. At present, around 87,000 people work for the company all over the world, 60,000 of them in Germany. With new models, innovative mobility offerings and other attractive services, Audi is becoming a provider of sustainable, individual premium mobility.
Media Contact
Stefan Grillneder
Spokesperson Product/ Technology
+49-841-89-41449
stefan.grillneder@audi.de
www.audi.com
About Schell Games
Schell Games is the largest full-service educational and entertainment game development company in the United States. Founded in 2002 by award-winning game designer and author Jesse Schell, the company boasts a highly-talented array of artists, engineers, producers, and game designers. Schell Games creates engaging experiences for VR/AR, PC, mobile, console, handheld, online, and social platforms; location-based entertainment and theme park attractions; connected toys; and virtual worlds. In addition to creating original games, the company counts some of the world’s most respected brands as clients, including The Walt Disney Company, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Lego, Yale University, Universal Studios, Fred Rogers Productions, The Smithsonian Institute, and the US Department of Education.
For more information on Schell Games, visit https://www.schellgames.com
Media Contact
Kat De Shields-Moon
Public Relations Manager, Schell Games
kdeshields@schellgames.com
