US firm raises $175m for 3D geolocation services

US firm NextNav has raised $175 million (US$120 million) in debt and equity financing, which it will use to deploy its geolocation platform — the Metropolitan Beacon System (MBS) — across major urban markets in the US.

Initially, the service will begin with a precise ‘altitude determination’ or ‘Z service’, enabling ‘floor level’ determination.

Subsequent phases of the deployment will provide precise 3D position, navigation and timing indoors and in urban areas and can also act as a backup to GPS for critical infrastructure, mobile phones, IoT devices and autonomous systems.

Funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group led the fundraising round.

“We are pleased to welcome Fortress to our investor group, and for taking the lead on a financing that we believe will have a transformational effect on location services and bring a new ‘dimension (Z)’ to commercial and public safety applications in the mobile, IoT and autonomous vehicles at scale,” said Ganesh Pattabiraman, NextNav’s co-founder and CEO.

“NextNav has the technology and the vision to pioneer a fundamentally new chapter for location-based services,” said Drew McKnight, Managing Partner of Fortress. “NextNav has built an extensive and impressive technology platform and we believe commercializing their Z-Axis service will be game changing for the industry.”

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