Nikola Labs Raises Funds for Radio Energy Harvesters

Nikola Labs, a start-up with a radio energy harvesting chip in development, recently said that it had surpassed $2 million in total funding from investors.

When the company's latest funding round closed in April, Nikola Labs said that it was on schedule to release its first product this year. The capital has been used for hiring engineers and readying the Indra chip for sale.

The start-up has partnered with Texas Instruments and Skyworks Solutions to build the Indra, which converts ambient radio waves into power that keeps connected devices alive without batteries. The company, founded in 2014 and based in Columbus, Ohio, aims to be among the first selling chips powered by the same signals used in communications.

The technology was first invented by Chi Chih-Chen, an electrical engineering professor at Ohio State University's Electroscience Lab. The company is named after Nikola Tesla, who discovered over a century ago that power could be transmitted via radio waves using resonant inductive coupling.