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Emesent, an autonomous mapping and robotics company based in Queensland, Australia, has secured $17 million in new funding to accelerate development of its Cortex AI autonomy platform and expand its Aura cloud software offering.
The raise comprises a $7 million venture debt facility from Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) and a $10 million equity round supported by Main Sequence, QIC Ventures, Orion Resource Partners, Hostplus and NGS Super.
Capital will be directed toward scaling manufacturing at the company’s Wacol, Queensland production facility and advancing two platform initiatives: Cortex AI, which enables autonomous operations in GPS-denied and hazardous environments, and Aura, a cloud-based platform for 3D data processing, visualization, and analytics. Emesent employs 109 people in Australia and plans to expand to meet demand from overseas markets.
The NRFC investment marks the organization’s first venture debt deployment to a deep technology company. Emesent’s flagship Hovermap LiDAR payload is deployed across more than 200 mine sites globally and counts Rio Tinto, BHP, and Glencore among its users.
“This investment accelerates everything we’re building at Emesent,” said CEO Charles Miller. “Our clients operate in some of the most demanding environments on the planet, and they rely on our technology to make those environments understood.”
Founded in 2018 by Australia’s CSIRO, Emesent serves clients across mining, AEC, defense, and critical infrastructure in more than 40 countries. Its product portfolio includes the Hovermap STX LiDAR payload, the GX1 all-in-one SLAM, RTK, and 360-degree imagery scanner, and its Aura and Cortex AI software platforms.
The funding follows commercial momentum from the GX1, which recently completed a global AEC roadshow spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
