ZaiNar raises $100M and launches physical AI platform

ZaiNar last week emerged from nine years of stealth and said it has raised more than $100 million in its latest investment round. The company claimed that this brings its valuation to more than $1 billion.

The Belmont, Calif.-based company also debuted its platform for physical AI, which it said can turn any wireless network into a sensing system that continuously knows where everything is, without satellites, cameras, or a drain on device power or compute.

ZaiNar said it addresses physical AI’s data problem. Currently, AI systems lack the right kind of data to train themselves and to move reliably in the physical world. These AI models need centralized, real-time location information that is accurate to the sub-meter and synchronized continuously, stated the company.

“Physical AI needs a live, continuous feed of where everything is, and that dataset simply did not exist,” said Daniel Jacker, co-founder and CEO of ZaiNar. “By solving time synchronization at the sub-nanosecond level, we’ve turned existing infrastructure into the foundation layer for physical AI. This funding accelerates deployment with carrier and enterprise partners globally.”

What do GPS, cameras, and beacons lack?

GPS, cameras, and beacons are powerful tools, but none of them offer the low-power, low-compute, and continuous accuracy needed for physical AI training and inference, according to ZaiNar.

GPS is accurate, but its most common use cases don’t offer sub-meter accuracy, and cannot function well indoors, underground, or in dense urban environments, noted the company.

Cameras and computer vision require a visual line of sight. They also drift or accumulate small errors that compound into large ones, unless more and more processing and power are used to keep machines located.

Ultra-wideband beacons require proprietary hardware costing thousands of dollars per facility, weeks of installation, and custom calibration that breaks when the user rearranges shelves.

ZaiNar hopes to turn 5G and IoT networks into sensing platforms

ZaiNar said it works with existing infrastructure and signals already deployed and transmitting worldwide, with no added hardware or software. It asserted that it can synchronize these signals a thousand times more accurately than conventional networks, allowing it to derive superior positioning information.

Radio waves travel at approximately 30 cm per nanosecond. This rate of travel, essentially constant, means that sub-nanosecond synchronization translates directly into sub-meter positioning accuracy, even indoors, outdoors, through walls, and around corners, explained ZaiNar.

The use of existing 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) networks as sensing platforms for location processing allows new levels of device and edge coordination, the company said. “Every connected device on a network will know where it is in relation to other objects with sub-meter accuracy, in real time,” it said.

“ZaiNar has solved a problem that’s stymied the industry for decades,” said Steve Jurvetson, a member of the boards of ZaiNar and SpaceX. “Precise positioning without dedicated hardware infrastructure opens markets that were previously inaccessible.”

ZaiNar has filed more than 100 patents and has been issued 90, covering its core functionality in phase-based time synchronization and network-computed positioning. The technology is protocol-agnostic and works across 5G, Wi-Fi, private cellular networks, and future wireless standards, said the company.

Tech veterans lead investment

Investors in ZaiNar’s latest round include Jurvetson; Jerry Yang, a founding partner of AME Cloud Ventures and co-founder of Yahoo; Tom Gruber, the co-founder of Siri; Jaan Tallinn, a founding engineer of Skype and co-founder of Metaplanet Holdings; and Nicholas Pritzker, the co-founder of Tao Capital.

“Whether in a hospital, on a construction site, or in a fulfillment center, knowing precisely where things are is crucial for making good decisions,” said Dr. Andreas Weigend, former chief scientist at Amazon and an investor in ZaiNar. “I wish something like ZaiNar had existed when I was at Amazon. Not only would it have changed how we operated, but also where we set the bar.”

So far, the company has secured more than $450 million in contracts and memoranda of understanding. ZaiNar said its technology is deployed commercially on multiple continents and plans to announce major carrier and enterprise partnerships in the coming weeks.

“ZaiNar is deployed and operating today, freeing construction workers from hazard zones, helping healthcare teams find medical devices, and enabling coordinated autonomous operations across industries,” said the company. “It turns out the spatial awareness layer physical AI needs doesn’t require next-gen 6G networks or legions of robots.”