Sensel, a haptic touchpad production company, announced Thursday it raised $18.8 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Global Lighting Technologies (GLT) with significant participation from Lenovo, which whom Sensel has been working with for the past few years.
The new funding brings Sensel’s total raised capital raised to $57 million since its founding in 2013.
Sensel creates touch-sensing, force-sensing and haptics technology. Being able to offer these three integrations in one module means Sensel can offer a complete solution for haptic touchpads, reducing cost, time and burden of integrating disparate technologies together. Its touchpads have already been used in a number of laptops including the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga. Lenovo is the first PC company to ship a laptop using Sensel technology, according to the company.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Lenovo to our family of investors,” Sensel CEO and co-founder Ilya Rosenberg said in a statement. “Working with Lenovo over the past few years has been an immensely rewarding experience for the Sensel team. We’re proud to be an integral part of the fantastic touchpad in the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga, which I happen to use every day. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Lenovo to bring the bleeding edge of our smart surface technologies — which combine touch, force and haptics — to future generations of Lenovo’s wonderful line of laptops.”
The new capital will help Sensel innovate new programable smart surface technology, enable thinner form factors and elevate user experience while using touch-enabled devices. GLT and Lenovo’s partnership with Sensel will also help the company co-develop new products to be integrated into GLT and Lenovo devices.
“Haptic touchpad backlighting is a natural extension of the technology in our world-leading light guide solutions for keyboards, and we look forward to integrating our technology with Sensel to create beautiful industrial designs for our PC customers,” GLT Group Chairman Mang-Shiang Lee said in a statement.
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