UltraSense Systems, maker of ultrasound technology to sense movement and gestures through a range of materials like metal, glass, and wood, raises $20M Series B
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
Ultrasound as an interaction medium has been building quietly since Ultrahaptics' $23M Series B in 2017, which put touchless interfaces on the venture map. The category then consolidated around that one player when gesture-tracking pioneer Leap Motion sold itself to UltraHaptics for roughly $30M — about a tenth of its peak valuation — folding hand tracking into the ultrasound stack.
UltraSense's $20M Series B now funds a differentiated angle: rather than projecting felt feedback or tracking free-space hands, its sensors read movement and gestures through solid materials like metal, glass, and wood. The later validation came from Ultraleap's $82M Series D backed by Tencent, confirming that investors will fund this space at scale.
First-order effects
- UltraSense gains the capital to move from component demos toward production design wins, competing directly with Ultraleap for the small set of device makers building touchless controls into products.
Second-order effects
- Device OEMs evaluating gesture-through-materials interfaces now have a second qualified supplier alongside Ultraleap, giving buyers pricing leverage and pushing Ultraleap to defend accounts where its hand-tracking-plus-haptics bundle doesn't fit solid-surface use cases.
Third-order effects
- If both players keep raising at escalating rounds, ultrasound interaction is heading toward a two-specialist structure — each owning a niche (free-space tracking versus through-material sensing) — while adjacent industrial sensor rounds like Soft Robotics' $23M Series B suggest perception hardware broadly is drawing dedicated capital away from generalist AI bets.
The trend: Touchless ultrasound interaction is maturing from a single-company bet into a funded specialist category, with capital splitting between free-space hand tracking and through-materials gesture sensing.