Baraja raises $32 million for autonomous vehicle lidar with prism-like optics

Lidar startup Baraja has raised $32 million in a series A round of funding led by Sequoia China and Main Sequence Ventures' CSIRO Innovation Fund, with participation from Blackbird Ventures. Founded out of Sydney, Australia, in 2015, Baraja is one of a number of lidar startups targeting the burgeoning driverless car industry with the necessary smarts to safely navigate busy thoroughfares without human intervention. Lidar technology essentially surveys the environment by beaming out laser-powered light to measure distances. Anyone who has observed the big players in the autonomous vehicle realm, such as Alphabet's Waymo, will have noticed the giant spinning lasers mounted atop the vehicle's roof that rotate to garner a comprehensive view of the environment. These are not only bulky, but expensive -- perhaps prohibitively expensive if self-driving cars are ever to hit mass production.