OPPO Invests in 3D Sensor Chip Manufacturer Adaps Photonics

Chinese media Leikeji reported on Monday that Shenzhen Adaps Photonics Technology Co., Ltd. registered a change with the Industrial and Commercial Administration on Saturday. James Harris is no longer a shareholder, while Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp., Ltd. now holds 3% of the company’s shares.

James Harris was a founding member of Adaps Photonics. Dr. Harris is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University.

Another three founders of Adaps Photonics, Jia Jieyang, Zang Kai and Li Shuang, all were students of Harris. They worked together at Stanford University for six years before starting a business together.

The last founder of the company, Zhang Chao, graduated from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and studied under Edoardo Charbon, a Full Professor at single photon avalanche devices (SPAD).

All of the founders had already worked in large foreign tech companies and had much experience prior to establishing Adaps Photonics. The company was founded in 2018 after a two-year application process for SPAD.

Although Adaps Photonics was established three years ago, the company has shown some outstanding achievements in high-performance photoelectric 3D sensing chips (dToF) in China. The company and its founders have made several breakthroughs in the technology all of which has meant increased interest from investors.

In the past two years, Adaps Photonics has completed two rounds of financing, amounting to tens of millions yuan.

In June 2020, Adaps Photonics completed an A1 round of financing worth 10 million yuan ($1.548 million). The investment was led by Lightspeed China Partners and joined by Shenzhen Oufei Investment Holdings Co., Ltd.;

In October 2020, Adaps Photonics completed an A+ round of financing worth several tens of millions of yuan. The investment was led by Xiaomi and joined by Kinzon Capital, Zhen Fund, Legend Star and Lightspeed China. The company’s registered capital subsequently increased from 2,099,800 yuan to 2,431,400 yuan.

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In July this year, Adaps Photonics released a dToF single-photon imaging sensor codenamed ADS3003, which is the first dToF sensor chip using 3D stacking technology in China. Previously, this technology was only available in Lidar Scanner chips that had been jointly developed by Apple and Sony and used in the iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro devices.

Adaps Photonics now provides SiPM high-performance lidar receiver solutions, SPAD area array imaging solutions, and dToF fusion hardware and algorithms.