Tel Aviv startup Prime Sense, maker of a system-on-a-chip that lets TVs or computers see and respond to users’ movement, has closed on a $20.4 million funding round, the company said.

The company’s second round of financing, which brings its total venture capital haul to $29.4 million, was led by Canaan Partners with participation from continuing investors Gemini Israel Funds and Genesis Partners.

The runaway popularity of Nintendo’s Wii game console, which uses motion-sensitive hand controllers and a balance board (to be released in the United States later this month), has helped fuel a move toward next-generation controllers. Among the companies vying to be the brains behind “Minority Report”-style computing are Israeli rival 3DV systems and Sunnyvale, California-based GestureTek.

Hrach Simonian, an investment analyst at Canaan Partners, said one theme the venture firm venture firm is pursuing is how to bring innovation on the input side to digital devices that have made advances elsewhere. Another Canaan portfolio company is N-trig, whose technology lets users manipulate images on a computer screen with gestures or a stylus.

“The Wii and [Apple’s] iPhone have been great marketing pushes for this space,” he said. “We’re really trying to lead the next-generation of user interface interaction,” he said.

Mr. Simonian said Prime Sense plans to sell its reference design, which includes patented algorithms, to companies that could incorporate them into game consoles, computers, medical devices and media control centers. Prime Sense has cut deals with major electronics firms with announcements expected in 2009.

Three-dimensional interaction between man and machine, demonstrated by Prime Sense, has been envisioned in science fiction, Mr. Simonian noted.

“If you’ve seen the movie “Minority Report,” it’s the kind of gestures Tom Cruise used to move things around the screen,” he said.

Prime Sense sees a broad range of potential uses for its technology, from helping a golfer fix a slice in his swing to letting a couch potato use a gesture to turn on the television to guiding the physical therapy of a patient.