Bangalore: Bangalore-based Tonbo Imaging, an Indian Defence technology company, has raised Rs 34 crore from Artiman Ventures, a US-based early-stage investor. The investment will go towards R&D and hiring talent in India, US and Israel.

Tonbo, which means dragonfly in Japanese, has been active since the last 5 years and has been providing complex imaging solutions and electro-optics systems for defence and homeland security applications which include U.S. army. Started by Arvind Lakshmikumar, an alumnus of BITS Pilani and Carnegie Mellon University, the company has offices in Bangalore, Palo Alto and Singapore. The company has 15 patents pending on their technology and employs only 12 people.

Artiman Ventures manages a $750 Million fund and this is the firm’s fourth investment in India after investing in companies like Cellworks, Guavas and Oncostem Diagnostics. Artiman Ventures feels ‘India is in the early stages of creating world class product companies’ and hence they have invested in this promising imaging startup.

Tonbo had raised 2.2 crore from Mumbai Angels last year. With India having the third-largest defence procurement budget in Asia, the total procurement by defence technology companies is estimated to rise to $42 Billion by 2015.