Velodyne's LiDAR shipments to grow 35% in 2021

Recently, Velodyne, a lidar supplier, released its Q4 and full-year financial report for 2021. Data showed that in Q4 2021, Velodyne's revenue was US$17.5 million, up 34.3% from Q3 and roughly the same as the same period last year.

Looking at the full year, its revenue for 2021 was $61.9 million, down 35% from $95.4 million the year before. Looking ahead, the company expects revenue for the first quarter of 2022 to be between $10 million and $12 million.

Velodyne's Q4 net loss was $37.5 million, and its full-year net loss last year expanded from $150 million in the same period last year to $210 million. Velodyne's Q4 and full-year lidar shipments exceeded 4,900 and 15,000 units, respectively.

The more optimistic data is that Velodyne's lidar shipments increased by 35% last year compared to 2020. In addition, its cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet were US$294 million.

Image credit: Velodyne

In early February, Velodyne agreed to issue a warrant to Amazon, which can purchase 39.6 million shares of Velodyne stock at $4.18 per share on or before February 4, 2030, through its wholly owned subsidiary Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings. It is reported that these warrants need to be gradually granted on the basis of Amazon paying Velodyne up to $200 million in "payments". Moreover, according to the terms of the agreement, Amazon can appoint a board observer when its holdings exceed 12.3 million shares.

Velodyne's stock price rose sharply on the news. Velodyne's market value has fallen by about 80% in 2021 due to internal changes and the fact that its business is still in its growth phase.

Last year, Velodyne CEO Anand Gopalan was reported to have resigned at the end of July after serving for a year and a half. Subsequently, foreign media directly defined Gopalan's resignation as an internal farce, but Velodyne officials did not comment on this.

In November 2021, Velodyne Lidar announced that Dr. Ted Tewksbury would serve as the new CEO, effective November 10, 2021.

Official information shows that Dr. Tewksbury holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently a member of the board of directors of MaxLinear and Jariet Technologies. He has served on the board of directors of the Global Semiconductor Alliance and semiconductor company Entropic Communications.

Overall, he has extensive experience in fields such as vision systems, semiconductors, and the automotive industry, and has served as CEO and director in several leading high-tech companies.