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Tag: Luminar

  • A rough week for hardware companies | TechCrunch

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    In just about a week, iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes all filed for bankruptcy.

    They’re very different companies — selling Roombas, lidar, and e-bikes, respectively — but as Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed on the episode of the Equity podcast, they faced some similar challenges, including tariff pressures, major deals that fell through, and a failure to establish themselves beyond the products that first made them successful.

    You can read an edited preview of our conversation below, with Sean providing an overview of each filing, Rebecca weighing in on whether she has a Roomba, and me speculating about what the popular narratives about these bankruptcies leave out.

    Sean: Rad Power is big for an e-bike company, but small, I think, in most people’s minds, since that’s still a bit of a niche. They were founded a long time ago and became popular even before the pandemic, and really were thought of as an industry leader, as far as quality of the bikes that they’re making, pretty good branding and marketing and trying to connect with with customers — which is really hard to find in the world of e-bikes, where most of them are just like alphabet soup companies on Amazon. 

    They rode that wave in the pandemic up high as micromobility really took off, and people were really rethinking how they were getting around, they weren’t commuting into the office as much. And we get glimpses of that in the bankruptcy filings. It only shows revenue back three years, but they were pulling in well over $100 million in revenue in 2023 — like $123 million, I think that fell to about $100 [million] last year, and through the bankruptcy this year, they were only at about $63 million, so they were clearly coming down off a pretty big high. They have a pretty diverse product lineup, but they just never really found a way to establish a foothold there.

    And I think you could say similar things about these other two companies. Luminar is another company that was founded in the early 2010s, came out of stealth in 2017, and its mission was essentially to take lidar sensors, which at the time were really expensive and big and really only used in, like, defense applications and aerospace. 2017 was sort of the first big hype cycle of autonomous vehicles. They wanted to apply those sensors, make them more affordable for that use case. That helped them get some deals, most notably with Volvo, and then some other deals with Mercedes Benz, and a couple other players. But they were just heavily concentrated in that, and that was one of the reasons they wound up filing this week, too.

    And then iRobot [was] the most well known of these three companies — a lot of people listening probably even have a Roomba at home or something very like it. It’s just another one of these situations where iRobot became synonymous with a certain thing, and then the advances in the technology that build that product move so quickly that they wound up in a situation where they were looking for a way out. And we all saw this, they were trying to get acquired by Amazon, and that deal got blocked by the FTC and so here we are. 

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    They’re very different companies, but they all ran into similar problems. Do either of you guys have a Roomba?

    Rebecca: No, I don’t have a Roomba. Those freak me out, but I bought my mom a Rad Power bike years ago, and she loves it. But now, you know, they had not only this bankruptcy issue, but they also had the issue with the batteries — they weren’t able to do their recalls because they were, like, “If we have to recall these bikes, we’re going to go bankrupt.” But they’re going bankrupt anyway! 

    I’m curious about the tariff thing, and how much this affected everyone’s bottom lines. You hear a lot on social media, people who are pro merger, how certain FTC blockings of [mergers] leads to the companies going bankrupt, or getting acquired by a Chinese firm rather than an American firm. 

    Sean: iRobot represents, to me, the sort of macro global trade problem of, could you have ever built this company here in the United States with a localized supply chain over the last 15 years? Probably not. And so it makes sense that they became so heavily reliant on China — which, let’s be real, probably led to the ability for these other companies to pop up and essentially copy what they did. 

    That reminds me of in Trump 1, when he flipped on tariffs for Chinese imports, and we saw a bunch of startups like Boosted Boards and other ones in the micromobility space get hit. So they’re contributing factors, for sure. The battery recall with Rad Power absolutely was, I think, a bigger dagger at the end, but the tariff stuff put them on uneven footing that made it harder for them to respond to stuff like that.

    Anthony: A lot of times when a company fails, there [are] larger structural issues, and then there’s maybe a more immediate proximate issue. And particularly in the case of iRobot, I think that a lot of former executives and even outside commentators are pointing to this Amazon deal that was reached a few years ago — it kind of looked like the EU was not going to allow it to go through, and there is this sense of, “Okay, well, by blocking this deal, you’ve essentially put the dagger in their heart that eventually killed the company.”

    That narrative also maybe ignores the fact that there were other things that caused them to want to get acquired in the first place.

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    Anthony Ha

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  • TechCrunch Mobility: Bankruptcy takes out two | TechCrunch

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    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for all things “future of transportation.” To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!

    The year in transportation started with a couple of bankruptcies — Canoo and Nikola — and now it’s ending with two more. Rad Power Bikes is coming to an end — or at least a bankruptcy. The electric bike company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, weeks after it warned employees that it could shut down without new funding. A spokesperson told TechCrunch the company will continue to operate while the bankruptcy case proceeds, and it’s looking to sell the business within 45-60 days.

    And then there is troubled lidar maker Luminar, which also filed for bankruptcy this week. The Luminar bankruptcy does not seem like a let’s-help-it-live-another-day type of situation. 

    The Luminar filing, which occurred after months of layoffs, executive departures, and a legal fight with its largest customer, Volvo, notes the company plans to sell off the business. It has already reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary. While the company will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process to “minimize disruptions” for its suppliers and customers, Luminar will eventually cease to exist once it’s completed, senior reporter Sean O’Kane reported. Want to learn more? I recommend reading O’Kane’s piece that looks at how Luminar’s doomed Volvo deal helped drag the company into bankruptcy.

    Even though the year was bookended by some failures, that doesn’t mean 2025 wasn’t filled with innovation and growth. The emerging robotaxi industry has indeed emerged. With that I have noticed new kinds of autonomous vehicle-adjacent companies popping up, and I expect that to become a trend in 2026. 

    The scale of robotaxis was largely driven by Waymo’s fast-paced growth, although Zoox and Tesla have also started to set up shop. This next year could be when we see these companies really squaring off in the same markets; it will also be the year when companies will face even greater scrutiny over safety and how robotaxis fit into daily life.

    Meanwhile, EVs have had their struggles this year and automakers have struggled to adjust.

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    For instance, Ford is pivoting yet again. The company said this week it is ending production of the fully-electric F-150 Lightning as part of a broader companywide shake-up that will put more emphasis on hybrids and gas-powered vehicles. As part of its shift, Ford is turning to the increasingly popular “extended range electric vehicle” version of the truck, which adds a gas generator that can recharge the battery pack to power the motors for over 700 miles. It’s also getting into the energy storage business — gotta do something with all those batteries — and says it is still committed to producing a midsized electric truck that will go on sale in 2027. 

    But hey, the EV is not dead. And the promise of smaller, more affordable ones are looming in the near distance with the imminent launch of Rivian’s R2 and Slate Auto’s electric truck. 

    Housekeeping note: This is the last newsletter of the year. The next time you hear from me, I will be in Las Vegas for the annual tech trade show known as CES. Going? Reach out. 

    To everyone, thank you for reading, participating in the polls, and sending me emails (yes, even the critical ones). Your voice matters and I love hearing from you. See you in 2026!

    A little bird

    Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

    Reporter Jagmeet Singh, who is based in India, always seems to have birds chirping in his ear about startup deals. The latest is Spinny, the Indian online marketplace for used cars. 

    Spinny is raising around $160 million, funds that will be used to acquire car services startup GoMechanic. TechCrunch learned the Series G round includes a mix of primary and secondary transactions and will value the 10-year-old startup at about $1.8 billion post-money.

    Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

    Deals!

    money the station
    Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

    Boatsetter and GetMyBoat, two companies that operate Airbnb-type business models for boats, agreed to merge

    Cowboy is back — sort of. The Brussels e-bike startup has been acquired by ReBirth Group Holding, a company that owns Gitane, Peugeot, and Solex. The e-bike startup had its buzzy moments but ultimately ran into problems, including a frame recall. The terms weren’t disclosed, but apparently it includes €15 million ($17.6 million) from existing shareholders. 

    Nirvana Insurance, an insurance tech startup focused on trucking, raised $100 million in a Series D funding round led by Valor Equity Partners. Lightspeed and General Catalyst also joined. Former TC reporter Mary Ann Azevedo had the scoop on the new valuation, which is now $1.5 billion.

    Notable reads and other tidbits

    Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

    Redwood launched a newly patented Battery Collection Bin designed to encourage consumers to recycle batteries. The system, which will launch in San Francisco, safely stores, packages, and monitors hundreds of batteries and battery-containing devices. 

    Rivian has added its branded “Universal Hands-Free” driving via a software update to its second-generation R1 EVs (not sure I am a fan of that term “universal hands-free,” btw). This upgrade will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel on 3.5 million miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada (so long as there are visible painted lines). Also in case you missed it over the weekend, senior reporter Sean O’Kane took us inside Rivian’s bet on AI-powered self-driving

    Securing America’s Future Energy has a new CEO. Avery Ash, SAFE’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Special Initiatives, will become the organization’s next CEO.

    Slate Auto, the electric truck startup backed by Jeff Bezos, said it has collected more than 150,000 refundable reservations for its low-cost EV due out at the end of 2026.

    Sterling Anderson has been on the job at GM for six months and there is already chatter about him taking over as CEO once Mary Barra retires. My take: Anderson has big tasks ahead, so let’s all take a beat before assuming he’ll get that top post. GM president Mark Reuss is also in the wings. 

    Tesla has pulled its human safety monitors out of its robotaxis in Austin. The robotaxi service is limited with a fleet size numbering in the dozens. Still, it is a milestone. And for those wondering, the California Department of Motor Vehicles told me this week that Tesla has not applied for a driverless testing permit. The company only holds a permit to test autonomous vehicle technology with a human safety operator located behind the wheel. 

    Meanwhile, Tesla is facing a tricky situation in California. Here’s the gist: An administrative law judge agreed with the case initiated by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles and ruled Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing that gave customers a false impression of the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving driver-assistance software. The DMV wanted to suspend Tesla’s sales and manufacturing licenses in the state for 30 days as a penalty for its action, and a judge has agreed. 

    Ah, but wait. The DMV stayed the order and is giving Tesla 60 days to comply. That gives Tesla two options if it wants to keep those licenses: drop the Autopilot name or ship software to its cars that make them autonomous.

    One more thing …

    Some of you might not know that I am also co-host of Equity, a TechCrunch’s podcast about the business of startups. I generally co-host our Friday show, which offers commentary and analysis on the news of the week. 

    Every now and then I interview a founder or VC for the Wednesday show. My latest is an interview with Jiten Behl, partner at Eclipse Ventures and former chief growth officer at Rivian, who thinks we’re entering an era of major reindustrialization in the U.S. — one where factories run on AI-powered robots, not cheap overseas labor.  Check out the episode here.

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    Kirsten Korosec

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  • How Luminar’s doomed Volvo deal helped drag the company into bankruptcy | TechCrunch

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    In early 2023, Luminar was riding high. After going public during the pandemic and scoring a key deal with Volvo, the company had added Mercedes-Benz and Polestar as customers of its “lifesaving” lidar sensors. Founder and CEO Austin Russell called it an “inflection point,” as Luminar prepped to have those sensors integrated into the first production vehicles.

    Volvo in particular was all in on the technology. The Swedish automaker, which spent decades building a brand around the idea of making the safest cars, was the first to jump at integrating the laser-based sensors in its vehicles. Volvo initially tapped Luminar to provide 39,500 lidar sensors over the life of a deal signed in 2020. In 2021, Volvo upped that to 673,000. And in 2022, Volvo upped it again, this time to 1.1 million sensors.

    Three years later, Luminar is now in bankruptcy. The company has already made a deal to sell off one subsidiary centered around semiconductors and is looking to sell its lidar business during the Chapter 11 process, which began on Monday.

    The first batch of filings in the bankruptcy case shed new light on how Luminar’s cornerstone deal with Volvo came apart — and how its undoing helped push the once-promising startup over the edge.

    Big promises, then big revisions

    Luminar made “substantial up-front investments in equipment, facilities, and workforce” to meet the demand from Volvo back in 2022, according to a declaration written by Luminar’s newly hired chief restructuring officer Robin Chiu. It built out a manufacturing facility in Monterrey, Mexico, and spent nearly $200 million to prepare to make its Iris lidar sensors for Volvo’s EX90 SUV.

    “Volvo was going to be a marquee customer, the stepping stone to introducing the company’s Iris product to the broader automotive industry,” one of Luminar’s lawyers said during the first hearing in the bankruptcy case on Tuesday.

    But, according to Chiu, problems were already brewing with Volvo. The automaker delayed the EX90 SUV because it needed to do more “software testing and development,” the automaker said in 2023. And in early 2024, Luminar says Volvo reduced its expected volume for Iris sensors by 75%.

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    Luminar’s other deals started to sour, too. Polestar (a subsidiary of Volvo) quietly gave up on integrating Luminar’s lidar sensors “because the vehicle’s software ultimately could not use” the features, according to Chiu. Mercedes-Benz terminated its agreement to buy Luminar’s Iris sensors in November 2024 because the lidar-maker “failed to meet ambitious requirements,” according to Chiu.

    (Mercedes-Benz struck up a new deal with Luminar in March 2025 for its next-generation Halo lidar, but Chiu wrote that Luminar has “no go-forward projects” with the German automaker at the time of bankruptcy.)

    This left Luminar with Volvo as its lone flagship customer.

    The company never diversified much beyond the automotive industry, shunning other applications like defense or robotics. In fact, Russell had founded Luminar in 2012 with the goal of taking lidar out of those sectors and into automotive to help accelerate the adoption of autonomous vehicles.

    It wasn’t until March of this year that Russell talked about expanding beyond automotive, as Luminar signed a deal with construction equipment company Caterpillar. Just two months later, Russell abruptly resigned following an ethics inquiry from Luminar’s board of directors.

    “More bad news”

    By Chiu’s account, Volvo kept promising that it would meet the lifetime order of 1.1 million units despite the reduced volume in 2024. So Luminar kept pressing forward under that assumption.

    But signs of stress were showing. Luminar laid off 20% of its workforce in May 2024 and outsourced more of its lidar sensor manufacturing. It deepened those cuts and restructured some of its business in September 2024. Another round of layoffs came in May 2025 after Russell resigned.

    In September, “Volvo delivered more bad news,” Chiu wrote. The automaker decided to offer lidar as an option on the EX90 going forward, instead of making it a standard feature as originally planned. Volvo also told Luminar that it was shelving lidar on future vehicles “as a cost-cutting measure.”

    “This change reduced Volvo’s estimated lifetime volumes by approximately 90%,” Chiu wrote.

    Luminar told Volvo on October 3 that it considered this a breach of the agreement the companies had first signed in 2020. On October 31, the dispute became public, as Luminar told shareholders in a regulatory filing that it was suspending sensor shipments to Volvo. The Swedish automaker sent Luminar a letter two weeks later, terminating the agreement.

    Volvo told TechCrunch in a statement Tuesday that it “made this decision to limit the company’s supply chain risk exposure and it is a direct result of Luminar’s failure to meet its contractual obligations to Volvo Cars.”

    “The company’s products can deliver a high level of safety and driver support, enabled by the cars’ powerful core computing coupled with their advanced sensor set — with or without a lidar,” a Volvo spokesperson said.

    Luminar, meanwhile, started selling lidar sensors meant for Volvo “to adjacent markets in an effort to recover its sunk costs,” according to Chiu’s filing, but it was too little too late.

    “As its relationship with Volvo deteriorated, [Luminar] worked tirelessly to identify new customers, but was ultimately unable to enter into production with any new customers in a timely fashion,” Chiu wrote. “The public Volvo dispute also resulted in a decline in sales due to broader market concerns over Luminar’s financial future.”

    Now the future of what’s left of Luminar is in the hands of its creditors and the court. It’s seeking the judge’s approval to sell the semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing, Inc. for $110 million, and hopes to court a number of bidders for the lidar business.

    Luminar has already had significant interest in the lidar business, according to the filing. In January, Chiu wrote, the company hired investment bank Jefferies to evaluate a sale after receiving an “unsolicited acquisition proposal.” Luminar received “additional unsolicited inbound expressions of interest to acquire the Company” through the summer and fall — including one submitted by Russell through his new AI lab in October.

    As TechCrunch reported Monday, Russell plans to keep bidding on Luminar’s remains as the bankruptcy case moves forward. During Tuesday’s hearing, a lawyer for Luminar said it is “deep into the sale process” and “in negotiations with” several potential bidders.

    This story has been updated with a statement from Volvo and information from Luminar’s first bankruptcy hearing.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • TechCrunch Mobility: A takeover that might not be hostile | TechCrunch

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    Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Want another reason to get this free in your inbox? The emailed version of this newsletter includes polls, including one this week that asks readers what they think the best business model is for autonomous vehicle technology. Have an opinion about this? Email me your opinion at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com with the subject line “AV poll.”

    OK, back to the show. There’s another twist in the road for lidar company Luminar. And yes, it includes some inside-the-boardroom intrigue. 

    First, let’s catch up. You might recall that Austin Russell, the billionaire founder and CEO of Luminar, was more or less pushed out of the company by its board following an ethics inquiry. But Russell didn’t go quietly into the night. 

    He popped back up on our radar a few weeks ago with the launch of a new company called Russell AI Labs. And now (cue the deep and foreboding “dum dum duuuuummmm”): He has made a bid to acquire Luminar. 

    Senior reporter Sean O’Kane broke the story, which you can read here. He has since learned a few more details beyond what is disclosed in the SEC filing. 

    This may look like a possible hostile move — it was, after all, disclosed in a filing from Russell, and Luminar is not commenting on the proposal. But we’ve learned from a source that members of Luminar’s board approached the founder about the idea last month. (The word we were told was they “encouraged” it.)

    The implication here is that some of Luminar’s nine-member board really does want him back, despite the fact that three of those board members on the audit committee conducted an ethics inquiry into him just a few months ago, leading to his resignation.

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    The proposed takeover as described in the filing is vague, but it could involve Russell AI Labs acquiring a different automotive tech company and merging it with Luminar. Since this morning, we’ve heard Russell is already trained on a few options as part of the diligence he’s done with Russell AI Labs, which he views as an incubator of sorts.

    Deals!

    Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

    Two notable deals this week occurred in the electric aviation sector. 

    First up is Beta Technologies, which took advantage of eased SEC rules during the U.S. government shutdown to price shares for its initial public offering. The shares are priced between $27 and $33, in hopes of raising as much as $825 million. If the company attracts investors at the top of that range, it will debut with a valuation of about $7.2 billion.

    The SEC issued guidance earlier this month that lets companies in IPO limbo allow their statements on certain areas, including share price, to become automatically effective after 20 days, even without SEC staff review. Several other companies, including Navan, have pressed ahead with IPO plans under this rule.

    And there is Lilium, which was involved in a very different kind of deal. The electric aircraft startup may have ceased operations a year ago, but its tech is living on over at Archer Aviation

    Archer won a competitive bidding process — one that Ambitious Air Mobility Group and Joby Aviation also participated in — and bought all 300 of Lilium’s patents. The price, €18 million ($21 million), is a stunning number when compared to the more than $1 billion the defunct startup raised over its lifetime. 

    The question is what does Archer plan to do with these patents? The company isn’t explicit, but there are some hints, which you can read about in my story. 

    Other deals that got my attention this week …

    Airbound, an Indian drone startup founded in 2020, raised $8.65 million in seed funding led by Physical Intelligence co-founder Lachy Groom. Humba Ventures and Airbound’s existing investor, Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as senior leaders at Tesla, SpaceX, and Anduril, joined.

    Dexory, a warehouse robotics startup based in London, raised $165 million in equity and debt. The $100 million Series C round was led by Eurazeo with participation from backers LTS Growth, Endeavor Catalyst, DTCP, Atomico, Lakestar, Elaia, Latitude Ventures, and Wave-X. The company also secured $65 million in debt financing from Bootstrap Europe.

    FleetWorks, a logistics startup developing an “always-on” AI dispatcher, raised $17 million in equity and debt, including a $15 million Series A round led by First Round Capital’s Bill Trenchard. Y Combinator, Saga Ventures, and LFX Venture Partners also participated in the FleetWorks Series A.

    Pony.ai and WeRide have received a key approval from Chinese securities regulators that clears the way for the autonomous vehicle technology companies to pursue secondary listings on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. The Chinese companies are already publicly traded in the U.S. on the Nasdaq Exchange.

    Starship Technologies, the autonomous sidewalk delivery startup, raised $50 million in a Series C round led by Plural. Karma.vc, Latitude, Coefficient Capital, SmartCap, and Skaala also joined.

    Upciti, a Paris-based smart city software company, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Notion Capital. Other investors included Point Nine and Chalfen Ventures.

    Zepto, the Indian grocery delivery company, raised $450 million in funding ahead of a public listing set, Bloomberg reported.

    Notable reads and other tidbits

    Image Credits:Bryce Durbin

    The National Transportation Safety Board has weighed in on OceanGate, the disaster that killed five people during a voyage to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The NTSB issued a report that found the Titan submersible did not meet manufacturing safety standards.

    Stellantis and Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai are working together to build robotaxis for use in Europe, albeit via a nonbinding agreement. The plan is to integrate Pony’s self-driving software into Stellantis’ electric medium-size van platform.

    While Stellantis delves into autonomous vehicle tech, it is pulling back on electrification. The automaker said it will invest $13 billion to beef up its U.S. manufacturing over the next four years. (This plan hasn’t been well received by labor unions in Canada, by the way.) Five new vehicles will be developed and produced through 2029 as part of the investment into factories in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Only one of those will be electrified, a marked difference from Stellantis’ strategy a few years ago. 

    Uber is offering a new kind of gig work: digital tasks like uploading photos to help train AI models.

    Waymo is expanding to London. The company said it will offer a commercial robotaxi service in London in 2026, marking the Alphabet-owned company’s second international expansion following Tokyo.

    As per usual, there was more than one piece of Waymo news. The company locked in a strategic multiyear agreement with DoorDash to deliver goods to customers in the Phoenix area using driverless vehicles. It’s been a while since Waymo has experimented with delivery. Is this a hint of what’s to come? I believe it is. 

    One more thing …

    Speaking of Waymo and delivery, it got me thinking about what the best business model is. It’s been a minute since we’ve had a poll, so I hope you participate if you sign up for the newsletter. I will share the results next week.

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    Kirsten Korosec

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  • Luminar cuts 20% of staff and outsources lidar production | TechCrunch

    Luminar cuts 20% of staff and outsources lidar production | TechCrunch

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    Lidar company Luminar is slashing its workforce by 20% and will lean harder on its contract manufacturing partner as part of a restructuring that will shift the company to a more “asset-light” business model, as it aims to scale production.

    The cuts will affect around 140 employees, and are starting immediately. Luminar is also cutting ties with “the majority” of its contract workers.

    “Today, we stand at the crossroads of two realities: the core of our business has never been stronger across technology, product, industrialization, and commercialization; yet at the same time the capital markets perception of our company has never been more challenging,” billionaire founder and CEO Austin Russell said in a letter posted to Luminar’s website. “[T]he business model and cost structure that enabled us to achieve this leadership position no longer fit the needs of the company.”

    Russell wrote in the letter that the restructuring will make it possible for Luminar to get products to market faster, “drastically reduce” costs, and set the company up better for profitability. The company said in a regulatory filing that the changes will reduce operating costs “by $50 million to $65 million on an annual basis.” The company is also reducing its global footprint “by sub-leasing portions or the entirety of certain facilities.”

    Luminar will continue to operate its Florida facility, which is used for development, testing and research and development, according to spokesperson Milin Mehta.

    Luminar announced in April that it had begun shipping production lidar sensors to Volvo to be built into the automaker’s EX90 luxury SUV. It also announced plans to deepen its relationship with Taiwanese contract manufacturing company TPK Holding. TPK has “committed to an exclusive relationship with Luminar,” Russell wrote in his letter.

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    Sean O’Kane

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