Luminar Raises $100M More

BusinessWire, Venturebeat, Techcrunch, Wired: A 1550nm mechanical galvo mirror scanning LiDAR startup Luminar announces $100M funding round that brings its total raised capital to $250M and its valuation to $900M. Other than existing investors, G2VP, Crescent Cove Advisors, Octave Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, the Westly Group, 1517 Fund, Peter Thiel’s investment group, GoPro founder Nick Woodman, and strategic backers Corning Inc., Cornes, and Volvo Cars Tech Fund have joined the round. Cornes will support Luminar’s expansion into Asia, while Corning will codevelop auto-grade and lidar-friendly Gorilla Glass windows and other components.

Luminar announces its new fully automotive qualified platform called Iris. It will be offered in two versions when it becomes available later this year. The higher end one costs $1,000 in production quantities and enable hands-free “freeway autonomy,” while the cheaper ADAS version costing under $500 will drive functions like emergency braking and steering.

The company says that it’s currently quoting and in the process of arranging multi-year contracts worth more than $1.5b combined.

Iris platform is said to be capable of seeing objects at 250m distance while consuming 15W of power.