Things about autonomous driving sensors--Introduction to hot lidar companies

In the previous two issues, we introduced the principles and related parameters of LiDAR. This is the last issue of the radar series. We mainly introduce some companies related to the LiDAR industry. Since its invention in the 1960s, LiDAR has been widely used. As the "brain of smart cars", NavInfo uses LiDAR in the field of smart cars. Below, we have compiled some information about LiDAR companies related to driverless cars. Let's take a look.

The LiDAR industry has been quite active recently, whether it is the investment received by the company or the capital operation of the listing, or the major domestic and foreign companies are competing to release the progress of mass-produced automotive-grade products. The following editor has compiled some recent hot events

Have you heard of or known about the companies mentioned above?

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know. Next, the editor will introduce several well-known companies at home and abroad.

Well-known foreign laser radar companies

01. Velodyne (USA)

Velodyne was founded in 1983 and is located in Silicon Valley, California, USA. It is recognized as a leading player in the industry. The company started out as an audio business, and then expanded its business to include laser radar and other fields. From 2006 to 2017, it was once the main provider of multi-beam rotary mechanical laser radar market. Its products are widely used in service robots, unmanned driving and other fields. With the rise of artificial intelligence in recent years, Velodyne has also been favored by many investors.

In September 2020, Velodyne merged into GRAF (Graf Industrial Corp), a US-listed company, and achieved a backdoor listing. Its NASDAQ stock code was changed to VLDR. After this transaction, Velodyne will raise US$150 million through PIPE (private equity investment listing entity) and have a cash reserve of approximately US$200 million.

Image source: Velodyne official website

Many major automobile manufacturers also use Velodyne's equipment. For example, in October 2019, Korean parts supplier Hyundai Mobis announced a partnership with Velodyne to mass-produce L3 autonomous driving lidar systems.

On December 1, 2020, Velodyne Lidar announced a partnership with Ford Otosan to jointly develop and test products related to heavy-duty truck autonomous driving technology. Currently, Ford Otosan is testing the Velodyne Velarray H800 solid-state lidar sensor to ensure that the next generation of models has safe navigation and collision avoidance technology.

On January 19, 2021, Mainline Technology announced a strategic partnership with Velodyne. The two parties will jointly promote the mass production of a new generation of driverless trucks and accelerate the commercial operation of driverless trucks in China's trunk logistics market.

Velodyne’s current representative products include:

Mechanical LiDAR——HDL-64E, HDL-32E, VLP-16

Automotive-grade LiDAR——VLP-32

High-performance LiDAR——VLS-128

ADAS-level solid-state lidar——Velarra-H800

MCLM series chip-level laser radar——VelaDome

Image source: Velodyne official website

02. Luminar (United States)

Luminar was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA. Its main business is independent research and development, manufacturing of automotive lidar sensors, and providing corresponding software.

In April 2017, Luminar received an investment of US$36 million and launched a high-resolution LiDAR sensor;

In July 2019, it received $100 million in Series A funding;

In December 2020, Luminar's special acquisition Gores Metropoulos was listed on the NASDAQ stock market and its stock code was changed to LAZR. The proceeds from the transaction will be used to accelerate the commercial growth of Luminar's 50 global partners, expand the product roadmap, and achieve a one-stop "full stack" highway automation and active safety ADAS solution.

The transaction includes $400 million in cash from Gores Metropoulos and $170 million in capital injections from top investors including VolvoCars Tech Fund.

Image source: Internet

In terms of customer cooperation, Luminar has cooperated with many automobile manufacturers and industry partners.

Since September 2017, Toyota Research Institute became Luminar's first public partner, and Volvo became its second partner in June 2018. Then in 2019, Luminar announced its cooperation with Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), Audi's autonomous driving technology subsidiary (AID is also the lidar supplier for Volkswagen, Porsche and other Volkswagen Group car brands). On May 8, 2020, Luminar and Volvo reached a supply agreement for the autonomous driving system to be launched in 2022. Luminar's lidar perception technology will be installed in the new Volvo models of the next-generation scalable module architecture SPA2 in mass production, and the high-speed driver assistance system (ADAS) will be improved.

On October 30, 2020, Luminar announced a strategic partnership with Daimler Truck AG to develop and mass-produce highly automated trucks (L4) for global road transportation. Then on November 20, it cooperated with Intel's Mobileye to develop autonomous vehicles. LiDAR products were configured for the first generation of driverless taxi test vehicles and driverless fleets.

Image source: Luminar official website

Luminar LiDAR products use 1550nm lasers, InGaAs detectors, and scanning mirrors. They are sensors that can effectively help vehicles make correct steering operations in dense fog. The representative products currently released are:

Image source: Luminar official website

03. Quanergy (United States)

Quanergy was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the center of Silicon Valley. It mainly develops and produces small solid-state LiDAR products, which can be used in smart cars, security, industrial automation, 3D mapping and other fields.

In May 2014, Quanergy received a $4.5 million seed investment from Samsung Electronics, Tesla founders and the Tsinghua Entrepreneurs Association Angel Fund, and completed a $30 million Series A financing in December.

In 2015, Delphi acquired a portion of Quanergy's shares, and then in 2016, Quanergy received a US$90 million Series B financing led by Texas Instruments and followed by Chinese investor Jinpu Investment.

In October 2018, Quanergy announced the completion of a tens of millions of dollars in Series C financing.

Image source: Quanergy official website

In terms of cooperative customers, Quanergy launched its first product, M8-1, in September 2014, and has applied it to test models of companies such as Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai.

In June 2019, Quanergy and Chery Automobile started cooperation to provide QuanergyS3 automotive-grade solid-state lidar to Chery's Lion brand cars. The lidar uses optical phased arrays (OPA) technology and is built on complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) silicon materials.

In December 2019, Geely and Quanergy will launch in-depth cooperation in the development and commercialization of smart city and autonomous driving system solutions. Among them, the smart city solution based on Quanergy LiDAR has been initially deployed at the intersection of Hangzhou Bay Area and Ningbo City in Zhejiang Province. In terms of autonomous driving vehicles, Lotus (which has been acquired by Geely Group) demonstrated Quanergy's S3 LiDAR sensor at CES in the United States in January 2020.

In October 2020, Quanergy and Advantech announced a partnership to develop LiDAR-enabled 3DIoT solutions for smart cities and smart logistics.

Image source: Internet

Quanergy's core technology is solid-state LiDAR, and its technical routes include: Optical Phased Array, Photonic IC, and Far Field Radiation Pattern. The representative products currently released are:

Image source: Quanergy official website

04. Innoviz (Israel)

After talking about American companies, let’s talk about an Israeli lidar company - Innoviz, which was founded in 2016.

At the beginning of its establishment, Innoviz received US$9 million in Series A financing. China Xiangfeng Investment China Fund also participated in the financing.

In September 2017, Innoviz announced that it had received a total of US$65 million in Series B funding from investors including Delphi, Magna, Glory Ventures, 360Capital Partners, and Naver. In November of the same year, it received another US$8 million in Series B+ funding from Samsung and SoftBank Korea.

In 2019, it received a total investment of US$170 million in Series C and C+ rounds. New investment institutions joining this round of financing include China Merchants Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group and New Alliance Capital; it also includes Israeli investment institutions Harel Insurance, Phoenix Insurance and Magna.

In January 2021, Innoviz announced its intention to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with Texas Collective Growth Corporation. Innoviz also became the fourth LiDAR company to enter the capital market through a SPAC after Velodyne, Luminar and Aeva.

Image source: Bloomberg

In terms of cooperative customers, Innoviz reached a cooperation with BMW in April 2018, and the InnovizOne lidar system will be integrated into BMW Level 3 semi-autonomous driving system vehicles. In January 2019, Innoviz announced a cooperation with Samsung's Harman International and integrated the company's lidar products into the autonomous driving system.

In 2020, Innoviz launched a new lidar, InnovizTwo (256 lines), which is scheduled to be launched in Q3 2021.

In January 2021, Innoviz reached a cooperation with Macnica, Japan's largest distribution company and global technology solution distributor, to sell its flagship product InnovizOne in Japan.

Image source: Innoviz official website

Innoviz is a representative provider of MEMS solid-state LiDAR technology. The representative products currently released are:

Image source: Innoviz official website

05. IBEO (Germany)

Ibeo, founded in June 1998, is a German supplier of intelligent driving lidar systems.