Cephia Secures $4M Seed Funding to Revolutionize Multimodal Sensing with Metasurface Technology

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Cephia, a startup building products using advanced AI computational imaging technologies and silicon sensors made from advanced metamaterials, formally launched with several pilot customers and $4 million in seed venture capital funding. Led by Radiant Opto-Electronics Corporation (ROE) and co-led by Incharge Capital, with participation from MetaVC Partners, NRM Partners and SOSV, the funding will accelerate product development, hiring and sales growth.

Cephia sits at the forefront of machine vision, robotics, and edge AI—addressing a vast and rapidly expanding physical AGI market that spans numerous industry verticals. Building on computational imaging software and hardware developed over the past decade at Princeton University the company will introduce a range of superhuman vision sensor products built from biological concepts that are capable of detecting what traditional sensors and the human eye cannot. The sensing technology developed by Cephia uses novel silicon metamaterials that can bend optical signals in unusual ways, allowing for unique sensing functions that are difficult to achieve with current technologies today.

"This funding marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of multimodal sensing," said Bo Dong, Founder and CEO of Cephia. "Our metamaterials-based technology is inspired by nature — drawing from creatures like mantis shrimp, dragonflies, and cephalopods, whose remarkably complex eyes allow them to perceive worlds invisible to us. Even more exciting, we can fit this capability into the palm of your hand, unlocking countless possibilities." Cephia is engaging with partners and customers across industries, including consumer electronics, manufacturing, and precision agriculture.

Cephia's founders are pioneers and engineers who have worked closely as researchers at Princeton University's Computational Imaging Lab and further established themselves in major roles in industry. They include:

• Bo Dong, Founder & CEO – former computer vision lead at Disney Research Imagineering who also worked as a senior computer vision researcher at SRI and computer vision lead at ESPN advanced technology group;
• Ethan Tseng, Founder & CTO – a recent Ph.D. graduate from Princeton University who developed the world's first full color metasurface cameras; also conducted research at Carnegie Mellon University and Adobe;
• Felix Heide, Founder – Professor at Princeton University; Head of AI at Torc Robotics, formerly Co-Founder and CTO at Algolux (acquired by Torc Robotics, an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck).

"We see great market potential for Cephia technology that will redefine metasurface-based multimodal vision systems, and we are pleased to announce our lead in Cephia's seed round," said Justin Wang, President, Radiant Opto-Electronics Corporation. "With our investment Cephia gets access to and can deeply engage with the portfolio companies of Radiant Opto-Electronics Corporation." Theodor Nielsen, founder and CEO of NIL Technology, will serve as ROE's representative on the board of Cephia.

"Multimodal sensing is being redefined with Cephia's proprietary hardware-software co-design approach," said Aleksej Mitrjaschkin, Partner at Incharge Capital Partners. "Their multimodal sensing solution is unlocking new use cases across massive markets, such as automotive, manufacturing and consumer electronics. We are thrilled to support their mission to meet the growing global demand for this technology and are encouraged by the significant early traction with pilots and active partnerships."