Khosla-Backed Startup Develops Precision Tracking for Drones, Trucks, and Robotaxis

For San Francisco startup Point One Navigation, the importance of "location, location, location" goes far beyond property. Investors appear to share this view.

The company, which builds high-precision location technology, has secured $35 million in a Series C funding round led by Khosla Ventures. An insider close to the deal reports the startup's post-money valuation has reached $230 million.

Founded in 2016, Point One has created precise positioning technology applicable to virtually any moving object. This includes autonomous lawn mowers and drones, robots, consumer vehicles, agricultural machinery, and even humans wearing compatible devices.

For Point One, "precise location" is exactly that. Co-founder Aaron Nathan explained to TechCrunch that their positioning engine can pinpoint location within one centimeter under optimal conditions.

To accomplish this, Point One integrates an enhanced global navigation satellite system (GNSS), computer vision, and sensor fusion into a single API. This API is typically deployed as software, as many modern vehicles like new EVs or luxury cars already have the required hardware. For equipment without it—such as farm machinery or first responder gear—the company provides an additional chipset.

Point One initially focused on the automotive industry, reflecting the optimistic early days of autonomous vehicle technology. This sector still accounts for a significant portion of its revenue. While most commercial customers remain confidential, the company shared that its technology powers advanced driver-assistance and infotainment systems for a major electric vehicle maker, with deployment in over 150,000 vehicles.

Other clients include leading lawn and turf care manufacturers, a distribution company operating 300,000 last-mile delivery vehicles, and a global producer of street and racing motorcycles.

According to Nathan, the startup began expanding into other industries around 2021, coinciding with its $10 million Series A round. This shift significantly accelerated adoption. In the past year, the number of manufacturers using Point One's technology platform has grown tenfold, spanning automotive, robotics, industrial, and wearable sectors.

"And now growth is only speeding up," Nathan said.

The Series C funds will support development across all areas of Point One's technology, including its Polaris RTK Network. This hardware system is crucial for delivering centimeter-level accuracy even in remote areas of North America, Europe, and Asia.

"Industries are increasingly demanding higher precision, from farming to road marking to lawn care," Point One's COO Tom Weeks told TechCrunch. "You can't afford to be off by ten centimeters and cut into a flowerbed. Everything is moving toward the one-to-three-centimeter range."

Achieving this level of accuracy required eight years of development on the RTK Network. The system consists of compact, lunchbox-sized units installed in secure locations like cell tower sites, which transmit location corrections. To form a dense network, these stations must be within 40 kilometers of the target vehicle or device, necessitating a large number of installations—a rollout the company is currently completing, Weeks noted.

"From Midwestern farmlands to the U.S. East Coast, we need solid network density due to the concentration of people, agriculture, vehicles, and freight transport," Weeks said. "We're in the final stages of filling out that coverage."

The company is also enhancing the technology's performance indoors. Currently, vehicles moving from outdoors into structures like parking garages maintain precise location tracking. Nathan aims to extend this capability to industrial settings where robots, for example, operate primarily inside buildings.

"A key focus of this fundraising is developing long-term indoor navigation solutions," he said. "Looking at our business evolution, we aim to solve ubiquitous location—eventually covering both indoor and outdoor environments across all domains."