Aviva Technology Raises $26.5 Million in Series A Funding for its High Bandwidth, Ethernet-based Automotive Networking Solutions

author: Eric Walz   

Silicon Valley startup Aviva Technology announced this week a $26.5 million Series A funding round led by Dr. Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai, the founders of Santa Clara, CA semiconductor manufacturer Marvell Technology Inc. 

Also participating in the round were other prominent semiconductor industry investors and SAFE round investors. 

The latest funding brings the total amount raised by Aviva to over $33 million for its high-speed automotive networking technology.

Aviva said the latest funding will enable Aviva Technology subsidiary, Aviva Links, to speed product development and expand sales and marketing as the demand for its high-speed data transfer solutions continues to grow in the auto industry.

Aviva Links is developing advanced, Ethernet-based connectivity solutions for autonomous driving systems, including hardware that supports multi-gigabit data transfer for connected vehicles. The company's scalable and secure connectivity solutions support powerful AI processors and advanced vehicle sensors that will power vehicle systems in the near future.

Aviva Technology also announced that Marvell Technology co-founder Dr. Sutardja has joined its Board of Directors to help support the growth of Aviva Links.

"Sehat is a successful entrepreneur and visionary with an unparalleled track record of innovation in the semiconductor industry," said David Young, co-founder and CEO of Aviva Links. "We share a common belief that high-speed connectivity technology with strong industry ecosystem support is crucial for the next generation of automobiles."

Marvell Technology has been at the forefront of automotive networking technology for the past 20 years. The company's automotive networking technology takes all of a vehicle's separate domains, including infotainment systems, engine, powertrain, advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) and body electronics, and connects them via high-speed Ethernet.

As modern vehicles become more like smartphones on wheels with software that can be updated over-the-air, there is a growing demand for robust automotive networking hardware and electronics to support the massive amounts of data that will be sent to and from a vehicle and the cloud. For vehicles capable of automated or autonomous driving, the amount of data transferred could be as much as 4 TB each hour. The hardware in many of today's vehicles simply cannot handle that amount of data, but in the future they'll need to.

"High-speed data transfer is clearly going to be at the heart of modern vehicles. Designing the right solution takes multiple levels of engineering experience and vast automotive expertise," said Kamal Dalmia, co-founder and COO of Aviva Links. 

The challenge for automakers is that they need to be able to transmit and receive data securely with ultra-low latency. This data might include a vehicle's internet-connected infotainment system that allows drivers to pay for gas, EV charging or other services right from the vehicle's infotainment screen.

To address this need, Aviva is building secured, in-vehicle connectivity integrated circuits (IC) solutions that can move this data at multi-gigabit speeds while meeting the performance, power, security and cost requirements of the auto industry.

The chips being produced by Aviva can transfer data at lightning speeds, the company says.

With the rollout of 5G communications technology, which is up to 100 times faster than 4G, vehicles will also require ultra-secure multi-gig data transfer speeds. 

"The demand for Aviva's technology is growing rapidly and we are engaged with several global and market-leading customers designing next-generation vehicles," said Young. "In applications such as autonomous driving where data needs to be received and analyzed in nano-seconds, speed and accuracy is not only critical, but also life-saving. The Aviva solution addresses this significant market need with a highly integrated circuit solution that finally makes low latency multi-gigabit data sharing in vehicles a reality."

The growing demand in the auto industry for the types of integrated circuits being developed by Aviva highlights what automakers are facing with the current chip and semiconductor shortage that resulted in production shutdowns in auto factories around the world. It also shows the great reliance automakers have for high-performance ICs and semiconductors for their model lineups. 

Now that vehicles are becoming connected devices, with many coming equipped with autonomous driving capabilities, the need for specialized high-speed Ethernet-based vehicle network architectures will only increase. 

With its latest funding round, startup Aviva Links is stepping up to meet this demand.

Eric Walz

Originally hailing from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry here in Silicon Valley. He has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology.