As first reported by Logan Dragone for Orlando Business Journal, Luminar Technologies (Website), the Orlando-area lidar and autonomous vehicle tech company, has filed for bankruptcy and agreed to sell its core semiconductor business as part of a restructuring plan.
The semiconductor division, which developed advanced chips essential to its lidar systems, to an unnamed buyer as part of a broader effort to streamline operations and raise cash. According to Dragone’s report, the sale of the semiconductor business is a key component of a strategy to satisfy creditors and preserve some of the company’s remaining assets, though it effectively ends Luminar’s push to vertically integrate its own silicon with its proprietary lidar sensors.
Luminar’s bankruptcy filing comes after a challenging period for the company. Once valued at billions following a high-profile SPAC merger and a surge of investor enthusiasm for autonomous vehicle technologies, Luminar faced mounting financial pressure as revenue lagged and competition intensified. The company pioneered long-range lidar systems designed to give vehicles precise, high-resolution sensing, seen as critical by proponents of self-driving cars, but commercial adoption has proved slower and more complex than many anticipated.
Details about the buyer of the semiconductor business and the timeline for the sale are expected to be fleshed out as the bankruptcy process moves forward.
Lidar is a sensing technology that uses laser light to measure distance and create detailed, three-dimensional maps of the world. The term stands for Light Detection and Ranging. A lidar system sends out rapid pulses of laser light, which bounce off objects and return to a sensor. By measuring how long it takes for each pulse to come back, the system can calculate precise distances.
