- General
- July 11, 2019
- 5 minutes read
Lidar Startup Luminar Scores $100 Million
Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell Photo by Seb Daly/Collision via Sportsfile Luminar — a Palo Alto, California-based lidar startup…
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| Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell
Photo by Seb Daly/Collision via Sportsfile
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Luminar — a Palo Alto, California-based lidar startup that has formed partnerships with automakers including Toyota, Volvo and Volkswagen — has raised $100 million in new funding, pushing its total raised to date to more than $250 million. Investors in this round include G2VP, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman, 1517 Fund / Peter Thiel, The Westly Group, Canvas Ventures, Volvo, Octave Ventures, Corning Incorporated, Cornes and Moore Strategic Ventures.
As part of this investment, G2VP’s founding partner Ben Kortlang alongside former Broadcom CEO Scott McGregor will join Luminar’s board. Luminar says the new funding accelerates its swoop into the market for production vehicles. Alongside the investment, Luminar has announced a new lidar: the Iris. Luminar plans to put the Iris to work on production vehicles beginning 2022. The new lidar will cost as little as $500.
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| A Toyota self-driving vehicle equipped with various sensory equipment, including Luminar’s
image: Toyota
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Luminar has also announced a new hire; Christoph Schroder, a self-driving tech veteran that’ll now lead its software team. Schroder is joining from Daimler/Mercedes where he led self-driving tech development. He had a previous stint working on Level 3 autonomy at Bosch.
Cornes and Corning, two participants in this $100 million round have teamed up with Luminar for work on lidars. Cornes is bringing supply chain expertise — stemming from its more than 150 years in existence — to the table. Corning, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of specialty glass, is working with Luminar to build lidar windows, alongside other optical components.
Founded in 2012, Luminar is one among several startups looking to get hold of the lidar market, one dominated by Velodyne. Luminar’s team consists of 350 people operating out of offices in Palo Alto, Colorado Springs, and a 125,000 square foot production facility in Orlando.
