Tuesday 7th September, 2021

Today we announce Silicon Valley legend Scott Pomerantz has joined FocalPoint as our new CEO. We’re also launching US subsidiary FocalPoint Inc to accelerate the commercialisation of our technologies in the mobile, wearables and automotive sectors – it’s a big day!

GPS expert Scott Pomerantz, who first brought GPS to major consumer smartphones, brings 30 years of experience in positioning and semiconductors. His company Global Locate won the race to bring GPS to the mass consumer smartphone market, supplying the first GPS chips to companies including Apple and Samsung.

Pomerantz joins us at a time of intense growth following a Series B round of investment led by VC firm Draper Esprit.

Our core Supercorrelation technology is a chipset-level software upgrade that uses patented methods to increase the sensitivity, accuracy and reliability of GNSS receivers by detecting and rejecting false signals – including those reflected off buildings and spoofing signals.

Applications include high accuracy positioning for smartphones, wearables, autonomous vehicles and drones, as well as cyber security and resilience – protecting location-dependent devices and businesses from spoofer attacks.

New CEO Scott Pommerantz commented: “FocalPoint’s technology portfolio is truly novel and groundbreaking. I am convinced that this is an inflection point for the positioning and semiconductor industry. Their technology solves an industry-wide problem and creates phenomenal opportunities for businesses who depend on the accuracy, reliability and security of location and timing information.”

“Having spoken to the team, customers and investors I am extremely confident that on the three vectors that really matter: technology, customer traction and company culture, FocalPoint is in a tremendous position.”

“We have great technology, an extremely strong IP position and one of the most impressive technical teams that I have ever come across.”

“We now need to scale up our technical support and customer integration so that we can maintain our development speed on IP and R&D while servicing customers and commercializing our technology.”

FocalPoint Founder Dr Ramsey Faragher commented: “When I established FocalPoint, one of my goals was to grow the business and IP portfolio to a point where we could attract one of the industry’s great CEOs to help us to complete our vision of powering the positioning of all GNSS receivers worldwide. I am thrilled to have succeeded in that goal and look forward to working with Scott on our next chapter.”

Ramsey will work alongside Scott as the President and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of FocalPoint, focusing on accelerating the firm’s technology roll-out and R&D activities. As we focus on setting up our Stateside operations, we’ll be sharing details of new starters in the coming weeks.

Draper Esprit Venture Partner David Cummings who led FocalPoint’s recent Series B funding round commented: ”We are extremely pleased that Scott has decided to join the FocalPoint team. He brings unparalleled experience in scaling start-ups and has a wealth of expertise in dealing with the leading hardware and software players. We are excited to see FocalPoint take another step on its impressive growth journey.”

Cambridge colleagues with Founder – Ramsey Faragher (pictured fifth from right)

We’ve arrived on the other side of an intense period of hiring, bringing our current headcount to 29 (and hopefully 33 by the end of 2021) which is allowing us to amp up our service offering on a number of commercial projects involving consumer technology. Those of you reading this who are perhaps looking for an exciting new career opportunity – we encourage you to take a look at our current openings.

Get in touch

Both Scott and Ramsey are attending the world’s largest technical meeting and showcase of GNSS technology, products and services – ION GNSS+ 201 Conference on September 23rd and 24th in Missouri. Ramsey is chairing a session with Apple called ‘GNSS Authentication and Anti-Spoofing’ and he joins Uber, Google and the largest chipset manufacturers on a panel ‘GNSS Chipset Technology – Trends, Opportunities and Challenges’.

Want to learn how our technology can supercharge your location based devices? Please connect with either Scott and Ramsey on LinkedIn, or get in touch with us.