When Prophesee was created in 2014, the ambition was to bring out a new generation of sensors inspired by the functioning of the human eye. The targeted outlets were then in automobiles, robotics and consumer electronics. Twelve years later, the company announced a fundraising of twenty million euros to accelerate drone detection and defense technologies. This new milestone tells as much about the evolution of Prophesee as that of the entire European deeptech ecosystem.
For several years, the French startup has established itself as one of the world’s leading specialists in event vision. Unlike conventional cameras which record images at a fixed frequency, its sensors only capture variations observed in a scene. Each pixel reacts independently as soon as movement is detected, considerably reducing the amount of information to be processed and allowing responsiveness of just a few microseconds. This biomimetic approach, inspired by the functioning of the human visual system, has long been presented as a technology capable of improving the performance of autonomous vehicles, industrial robots or advanced electronic equipment.
The launch of Mantara, however, marks a significant change of direction. The new system developed by Prophesee no longer primarily targets production chains or automobile manufacturers. It is aimed at critical infrastructure operators, security players and armed forces faced with the proliferation of drones. The company presents Mantara as the first integrated drone detection and tracking system natively designed around event-driven vision, from the sensor to on-board processing by artificial intelligence.
This development is not solely the result of a technological choice, but reflects a profound transformation in demand. For years, part of the European deeptech industry has sought its commercial inflection point in automobiles. Manufacturers promised the advent of ever more autonomous vehicles, capable of integrating new sensors and new perception capabilities. The reality turned out to be more complex. Validation cycles remain long, regulatory constraints significant and pressure on costs permanent. For many tech startups, market ramp-up has been slower than hoped.
At the same time, recent conflicts have given rise to a new category of needs. Drones have become omnipresent in modern theaters of operations. The Ukrainian experience showed that a relatively inexpensive device could pose a significant threat to much more sophisticated military equipment. Civil infrastructure is also affected. Airports, ports, power plants, sensitive industrial sites or large public events must now take into account the risk posed by increasingly accessible and efficient flying objects.
This development modifies the very nature of the technologies sought. The ability to quickly detect a drone flying at low altitude, frequently changing trajectory and presenting few electromagnetic or thermal signatures becomes a central issue. In this context, the low latency offered by event-driven vision constitutes a concrete advantage. Where a traditional camera must capture, transmit and then analyze a complete image, an event sensor directly transmits information corresponding to a change observed in the scene. According to Prophesee, Mantara can thus identify and characterize a threat before a traditional system has finished processing a single image.
Beyond Mantara, perhaps the most structuring announcement concerns Hearth. This new software platform becomes the heart of the company’s strategy. It succeeds OpenEB and the Metavision SDK, which had accompanied the development of the ecosystem until now. Hearth integrates artificial intelligence capabilities, field update management, cybersecurity, compatibility between sensor generations and the fusion of data from different sources. The objective is no longer just to provide a high-performance component but to offer a complete environment allowing manufacturers, integrators or developers to build their own applications around event vision.
This transition is indicative of another important development: for several years, Prophesee focused on promoting its technology to the developer community via OpenEB. The announcement of the gradual end of life of this open source layer reflects a change in maturity. After having sought to convince the market of the interest of event vision, the company is now seeking to structure an industrial ecosystem around a proprietary platform capable of ensuring the compatibility, maintenance and evolution of deployed applications.
The Prophesee case is part of a broader dynamic observed in Europe. Over the past three years, a growing number of companies positioned in robotics, sensors, embedded artificial intelligence or tactical software have been approaching defense markets. This movement goes far beyond just the military question. It reflects the emergence of a European market for security and the fight against drones, the contours of which are beginning to take shape. Players like Helsing in tactical artificial intelligence, Quantum Systems or Tekever in drones, as well as Exosens in advanced imaging are participating in the gradual emergence of a European value chain dedicated to these new uses.
However, this structure remains fragile; European players operate in an environment dominated by the United States but also faced with the rise of China’s industrial power. While debates on technological sovereignty often focus on semiconductors or the cloud, advanced sensors and perception systems also constitute strategic segments. China already has a dominant position in several categories of civilian drones and is making rapid progress in the areas of on-board electronics, machine vision and associated components. For European manufacturers, the challenge therefore consists as much of maintaining their technological edge as of building industrial capacities capable of competing on a global scale.
This new fundraising, amounting to twenty million euros announced by Prophesee must be interpreted in this perspective. The operation comes six months after the arrival of Jean Ferré as general management and supports a strategy of moving up the value chain. The company no longer presents itself only as a supplier of sensors but as a player capable of offering complete systems, combining hardware, software and embedded intelligence. The funds are to finance the commercialization of Mantara, the development of Hearth as well as the increasing integration of artificial intelligence functions directly within sensors.
