NTT DOCOMO Ventures Invests in Lisnr

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Takayuki Inagawa; hereinafter called “NDV”) has invested in Lisnr, Inc. (Head Office: California, USA; CEO: Eric Allen; hereinafter called “Lisnr”), a provider of ultrasonic communication technology, through a fund operated by NDV.

There are various near-field communication technologies, such as RFID, NFC, and Bluetooth. These technologies are being used in a wide variety of fields, such as clearing and settlement, marketing, and inventory management. Lisnr’s ultrasonic communication technology is one technology that helps achieve near-field communication, and solutions that use the technology have been provided so far. The special feature of ultrasonic communication is that only microphones and speakers are required as hardware, and there is already a wide installed base of users, such as stores, commercial facilities, plants, and automobiles. Furthermore, even users of mobile phones that do not support NFC or Bluetooth can carry out ultrasonic communication using microphones and speakers.

Since its founding in 2012, Lisnr has been consistently engaged in developing ultrasonic communication technology and has provided ultrasonic communication platforms to various companies. Lisnr’s technology has been used in various fields, such as authentication at the gates of concerts and sports events and marketing, personal authentication, and mobile payment at stores and outdoor events. Lisnr’s technology is expected to be used in a wider range of fields in the future.

Lisnr has high technological capabilities in the area of ultrasonic communication and is highly praised by its existing customers for its high communication speed and strong security functions. Lisnr’s solutions are expected to be used in a wide variety of fields, such as clearing and settlement and automobiles, in the future. NDV has invested in Lisnr on the basis of expectations that NDV will be able to contribute to creating new values by using Lisnr’s ultrasonic technology in various services provided by NTT DOCOMO.

Following the investment, NDV will proceed with efforts to create new values by, for example, supporting linkage between Lisnr’s technology and NTT DOCOMO’s services.

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