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Swift Navigation Raises $50 Million Series C Round to Accelerate Consumer Adoption of Automotive Safety and Precise Navigation Applications Across the Globe

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Swift Navigation, a San Francisco–based tech firm redefining GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and precise positioning technology for autonomous vehicles, automotive, mobile and mass–market applications, today announced that it has raised a $50 million Series C round of financing led by existing investors Forest Baskett and Greg Papadopoulos of New Enterprise Associates (NEA), existing investor Eclipse Ventures and new investors, including EPIQ Capital Group and KDDI Open Innovation Fund. To date, the company has raised a total of $97.6 million in funding.

Since its Series B round of financing, Swift has delivered a higher performance precise positioning service and expanded its global coverage to meet the needs of an on–demand economy and higher levels of autonomy. Swift's customers across the globe include automotive OEMs, last–mile delivery providers, mobile providers and those building rail, industrial, micromobility and IoT platforms for mass–market applications. Swift plans to use its latest round of funding to scale customer deployments and continue its worldwide expansion.

Swift offers a comprehensive GNSS platform, consisting of the receiver–agnostic Starling software positioning engine that easily integrates with the automotive sensor suite and pulls centimeter–accurate location corrections from Skylark""Swift's wide area, cloud–based GNSS precise positioning service that delivers real–time, secure and highly–available location data across the contiguous U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and a growing number of countries worldwide""to deliver absolute positioning at the continental scale required by today's safety–critical autonomous applications.

The benefits of Swift's precise positioning solution for its varying customer applications abound. Swift's platform enables automotive OEMs to easily integrate precise positioning and high–confidence location features into their latest vehicles. Swift's precision GNSS solutions improve last–mile operations, allowing fleet managers to optimize delivery routes, minimize fuel and operational costs and crowd–source information to reduce delays. Swift's highly accurate positioning technology is easily integrated into leading mobile devices and platforms, enhancing location–driven mobile applications. Swift Navigation's cloud–based architecture allows mobile devices and vehicles to achieve lane–level location accuracy without geographic restrictions and with the utmost privacy and security.

"In the past few years, Swift Navigation has expanded across the globe, offering an ever–expanding service that is scalable to service millions of users," said Greg Papadopoulos, PhD, Venture Partner at NEA. "NEA is delighted to lead this Series C round of financing, which will allow Swift to accelerate customer adoption in automotive safety and autonomy applications."

"We are grateful to have an amazing investor base behind us who support our mission of enabling more efficiency and integrity in navigating the world. It is with their support that we were able to scale our customers' autonomous and navigation applications globally," added Timothy Harris, Co–Founder and CEO of Swift Navigation. "Thank you to NEA, Eclipse, EPIQ and KDDI for sharing our vision of the importance of precision navigation in moving people, packages and vehicles more safely around the globe."

To learn more about how to easily integrate Swift's solutions into your application, visit swiftnav.com or contact sales@swiftnav.com.

ABOUT SWIFT NAVIGATION

Swift Navigation provides precise positioning solutions for automotive, autonomous vehicle, mobile and mass–market applications. What began as the GNSS industry's first low–cost, high–accuracy, real–time kinematic (RTK) receiver has evolved into a Swift Navigation ecosystem of positioning solutions for autonomous applications. From the continental GNSS precise positioning service delivered from the cloud by Skylark, the hardware–independent, integrated software solution that is the Starling positioning engine, to the centimeter–level accurate Piksi Multi and ruggedized Duro and Duro Inertial RTK receivers, Swift Navigation is enabling a future of autonomous vehicles to navigate and understand the world. Learn more online at swiftnav.com, follow Swift on Twitter @Swiftnav

Press Contact:
Swift Navigation
press@swiftnav.com


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 8149200)

IFG Ends Successful IP Infringement Case in South Africa

BAKERSFIELD, Calif., Feb. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — INTERNATIONAL FRUIT GENETICS LLC (IFG) After several years of sometimes acrimonious lawsuits, IFG has finally come to the end of infringement proceedings in which it sought to protect its proprietary grape varietals in the Western Cape, South Africa.

During 2010, IFG concluded a suite of licensing, planting, and marketing agreements with a table grape grower in Paarl, South Africa, as well as other associated farming entities. In terms of the agreements, the grower was licensed to plant, grow and market several IFG grape varieties in South Africa, which was done successfully over several years. However, during an inspection, IFG determined that this grower had unlawfully propagated some of the varietals beyond license limits and was growing and propagating an IFG varietal before protection for the variety was granted in South Africa. Upon further investigation, IFG determined that the grower had stolen a slip of the varietal from one of the IFG founder's vineyards in California while visiting and had transported it to South Africa, where it was grafted, propagated, and commercially grown.

Due to the growers' unlawful conduct, IFG canceled all of the agreements it had with the licensee and asked that the grower to cease all use of IFG's proprietary plant material and destroy all IFG proprietary plant material by cutting off all vines below the graft union. Unfortunately, the grower refused to do so, forcing IFG to take more drastic measures, including the freezing of bank accounts and contempt of court proceedings for failure to comply with the court's orders.

Ultimately, when it became clear to the grower that IFG was taking the necessary steps required to protect their intellectual property, the grower agreed and complied by cutting the vines below the graft union on all IFG varietals.

This case marks a stunning success for IFG and for all owners of plant breeders' rights, which are an extremely valuable form of intellectual property. Respect of these rights allows breeders globally to make the continued investments, ensuring that the table grape industry has a bright and vibrant future.

"It was a long road, and we are glad to come to the end of it, but we have no regrets," said Andy Higgins, CEO of IFG. "Our intellectual property rights are the heart of our business, and we need to protect them. We will not hesitate to take similar action in other parts of the world should there be a need to do so."

For more information, visit www.ifg.world

Media Contact:

Olivia Riley
Bastion Elevate
949–522–0549
olivia@bastionelevate.com


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 8149504)