Lidar and perception startup Innoviz raises $132 million

Innoviz, the Israel-based startup developing solid-state lidar sensors and perception software for autonomous vehicles, has raised $132 million in a Series C funding round that includes major Chinese financial institutions. The round, which makes Innoviz one of the better capitalized lidar startups, includes China Merchants Capital (SINO-BLR Industrial Investment Fund, L.P.), Shenzhen Capital Group and […]

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Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Ouster has raised $60 million as the San Francisco-based lidar startup opens a new facility that will have the capacity to assemble and ship several thousand sensors a month by the end of 2019. The new factory, which will have a grand opening ceremony March 28, currently produces hundreds of sensors per month. Ouster says […]

View More Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Ouster has raised $60 million as the San Francisco-based lidar startup opens a new facility that will have the capacity to assemble and ship several thousand sensors a month by the end of 2019. The new factory, which will have a grand opening ceremony March 28, currently produces hundreds of sensors per month. Ouster says […]

View More Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Transportation weekly: Nuro dreams of autonomous lattes, what is a metamaterial, Volvo takes the wheel

Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. We love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Read the first edition here.  As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow me on Twitter @kirstenkorosec to ensure you see it each week. […]

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Gates-backed Lumotive upends lidar conventions using metamaterials

Pretty much every self-driving car on the road, not to mention many a robot and drone, uses lidar to sense its surroundings. But useful as lidar is, it also involves physical compromises that limit its capabilities. Lumotive is a new company with funding from Bill Gates and Intellectual Ventures that uses metamaterials to exceed those limits, perhaps setting a new standard for the industry.

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GM Cruise snags Dropbox HR head to hire 1,000 engineers by the end of the year

GM Cruise plans to hire 1,000 more engineers over the next nine months, TechCrunch has learned. It’s an aggressive move by the autonomous vehicle technology company to double its size as it pushes to deploy a robotaxi service by the end of the year. Arden Hoffman, who helped scale Dropbox, will leave the file-sharing and […]

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Transportation Weekly: Waymo unleashes laser bear, Bird spreads its wings, Lyft tightens its belt

Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch . This is the fifth edition of our newsletter and we love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Catch up here, here and here. As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow […]

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Waymo starts selling its LiDAR sensors to power robots, security systems, and more

The small mound on the back of Waymo’s self-driving cars is for sale. 
The Alphabet-owned autonomous car company is making its “homemade” LiDAR sensor, the Laser Bear Honeycomb, available to other companies. 
In a blog post Wednesday, the c…

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Waymo to start selling standalone LiDAR sensors

Waymo, the Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, will start selling its custom LiDAR sensors — the technology that was at the heart of a trade secrets lawsuit last year against Uber . The company announced Wednesday in a blog post that it will sell is light detection and […]

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Aurora Solar’s computer-generated installation maps pull in a $20M Series A

Solar installations are becoming a no-brainer for anyone with a roof in much of the country. But getting an estimate on how much it would cost and how much juice it would generate can be complicated and time consuming. Aurora Solar has made an automated process for doing this, and attracted $20 million in funding as a result.

View More Aurora Solar’s computer-generated installation maps pull in a $20M Series A

Lidar startup AEye raises $40M Series B led by the Taiwanese government’s investment firm

Lidar technology developer AEye will scale its operations globally through manufacturing partnerships after raising a $40 million Series B. The round was led by Taiwania Capital, the investment firm created and backed by Taiwan’s National Development Council, and included returning investors Kleiner Perkins, Intel Capital, Airbus Ventures, and Tychee Partners. This brings the California-based startup’s […]

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Luminar nabs former Uber executive to lead LiDAR startup’s business development

Luminar, the buzzy LiDAR startup founded by Austin Russell, has added another high-profile executive to its ranks. This time, Luminar has hired Uber executive Brent Schwarz as its head of business development. Schwarz, who has been at Luminar for about two months now, comes from Uber by way of self-driving truck startup Otto, which acquired […]

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