Sydney-based navigation technology company, Advanced Navigation, has successfully completed a funding round that raised $158 million.

The company is famous for its production of advanced fibreoptic gyroscopes, which are being used both terrestrially and in orbit.

The funding round was spearheaded by Airtree Ventures, with participation from Quadrant Private Equity and the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation.

The investment comes as the wider world continues to slowly begin to appreciate the vulnerabilities inherent in the widespread reliance on the GNSS.

Advanced Navigation seems to primarily have its eye firmly set on the military market, as evidenced by the presence of retired General David H. Petraeus on its advisory board, and contracts with the US Army and military primes Anduril, Kongsberg, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Rheinmetall.

The company claims to have more than 100,000 systems deployed across the world, with more than 80% of its revenue now coming from the US and Europe.

Expanding production

The funding raised in this round will be used expand manufacturing and production in Australia.

Interestingly, it will also be used to establish ‘PNT Centres of Excellence’ in the US and Europe, as well as enabling a corporate acquisition program to broaden the company’s capabilities in robotics, photonics, vision, AI and quantum sensing.

The PNT Centres of Excellence will place engineering teams directly within key regions, building an on-the-ground capability.

“As autonomous vehicles scale into contested and high-stakes frontiers, the world’s reliance on any single navigation technology has evolved from a technical limitation into a systemic vulnerability,” said Chris Shaw, Advanced Navigation’s CEO and one of its co-founders.

“To power the next generation of autonomous systems, Advanced Navigation is combining deep learning software with high-precision hardware to help systems conquer the extremes across sea, land, air and space.”

The future of navigation

According to Shaw, the company has just experienced a year of triple-digit growth, and is therefore keen to capitalise on the momentum through its expansion program.

“The era of relying on a single silver bullet for navigation is over,” said Shaw.

“Across defence, energy transition, humanitarian response, and autonomous missions, certainty is required where GPS can no longer be trusted.”

“The future belongs to intelligent systems that can sense, adapt, and navigate independently.”