Full Press Release:

DETROIT - May 12, 2021

Baraja, creator of the breakthrough Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology for autonomous vehicles, has expanded its executive team with the appointment of automotive industry veterans Paul Eichenberg as Chief Strategy Officer and Jim Kane as VP of Automotive Engineering.

Eichenberg and Kane have been instrumental in bringing autonomy and electric drivetrains to the automotive industry, with decades of experience working with global car brands like DaimlerChrysler and Tier 1 suppliers such as Magna. Their deep technical and industry knowledge will be fundamental to helping Baraja work closely with automakers and Tier 1 suppliers to integrate Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology into future models.

The appointments are the latest in a series of major milestones for Baraja and strategically position the company for commercial growth following a recent funding round of USD$31 million, led by Blackbird Ventures and Hitachi Construction Machinery.

“Paul and Jim have spent decades working with carmakers to integrate autonomous systems and have an incredibly deep understanding of the market and what’s possible with LiDAR technology in the real world. Bringing them to Baraja will help us expand our Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR in the market and truly help carmakers enable autonomous driving,” said Federico Collarte, CEO and Co-Founder of Baraja. “We are proud to welcome both Paul and Jim, as their collective expertise will be incredibly valuable as Baraja continues to show the future of long-range automotive LiDAR.”

Eichenberg spent more than 10 years working at Magna, where he was responsible for developing growth initiatives, driving customer diversification and expanding into new international markets. At Baraja, Eichenberg will use his deep industry knowledge and business development experience to expand the company’s partner network and help scale its commercial sales in the near future.

Kane joins the company with more than 20 years of engineering experience working for large carmakers and Tier 1 suppliers including Magna and Chrysler. Kane was responsible for driving advanced technologies for Magna’s customers, and during his tenure at the company doubled the size of Magna’s electronics engineering team. He has been a part of two successful startups that sold to Tier 1 suppliers. Drawing from his in-depth experience working with manufacturing and LiDAR technology, Kane will be responsible for evolving the company’s Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR solution for commercial integration in cars.

“There are only a small handful of legitimate LiDAR developers on the market right now and Baraja is one of them,” Eichenberg said. “LiDAR is quickly becoming a crucial aspect of the move to autonomous vehicles and I am very excited to be a part of a trusted company that is working to develop the best technology available.”

Kane said: “With the competition in the market, I didn’t quite expect two telecommunications engineers from Australia to be at the forefront of LiDAR but as soon as I saw it in action, I knew Baraja’s technology was like nothing else on the market. LiDAR will enable true autonomous driving and I believe Baraja has the best technology to enable Level 4 autonomy.”

Baraja’s Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR builds upon proven photonics and optical technologies from the telecommunications industry to completely rethink environment scanning for autonomous vehicles. Spectrum-Scan™ sets a new benchmark autonomous mobility, built to provide unrivalled resolution at an effective range of more than 250 meters on highways, city streets, and heavy industry.

Spectrum-Scan™ is already being deployed daily by customers in harsh terrains, from outback mines to arctic tundra.

About Baraja

Baraja is building the next generation of LiDAR to enable the autonomous future. With its revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR technology, Baraja gives leading automotive companies a solid-state system in the fast axis that sets a new benchmark in precision and reliability.

Baraja was founded in 2016 by telecommunications engineers Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril, who discovered a way to use the industry’s proven optic fiber + photonics technology to solve the problems faced by legacy LiDAR. Baraja is backed by Sequoia China, Blackbird Ventures, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Main Sequence Ventures.

About Baraja Spectrum-Scan™

Baraja’s revolutionary Spectrum-Scan™ LiDAR completely rethinks the way autonomous vehicles see the world around them.

Built on proven optical and photonics technologies from the telecommunications industry, Spectrum-Scan™ precisely steers infrared lasers through prism-like optics in the sensor, rapidly switching the laser’s wavelength to send each color of light in a different direction — the same way optic fiber technology works. The resulting pointclouds are extremely high-resolution and immune to interference from other light sources and LiDAR systems.

Because it is solid state in the fast axis, Spectrum-Scan™ sensors have fewer moving parts and are more tolerant to factors that have hindered traditional LiDAR systems such as heat, shock and vibration. It delivers high resolution to detect objects at distance, and speed, and is immune to interference from other sensors and light sources.

Baraja Spectrum-Scan™ operates on the 1550 nm infrared spectrum, making it safe for human eyes, and creates crystal-clear pointclouds with a high-resolution 2000-channel vertical axis and responsive focus to detect objects at effective ranges of more 250 meters.

Spectrum-Scan™ is built for maximum reliability in real-world environments. Tested on the dirt roads of mines and arctic tundra, Spectrum-Scan™ has higher tolerance to heat, shock and vibration than other systems so it can brave the toughest environments, from city streets to the outback.