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Luminar, a self-driving car start-up founded by CEO Austin Russell at the age of 17 while in high school, said Monday that it would go public as part of a $3.4 billion merger with a special target acquisition company.
“Eight years ago, we addressed the challenge that the ultimate idea would not be a technically or commercially viable solution,” Russell said in a press release, referring to the structure of a less expensive but safer formula for autonomous cars known as lidar.« We have worked tirelessly to build the generation from scratch to solve it and have partnered directly with the world’s leading automakers to showcase what is possible worldwide.
Luminar, which manufactures reasonable laser steering systems for self-driving cars, has reached a “final agreement” to merge with Gores Metropoulos, a procurement company related to the Gores Group investment corporation, corporations said.and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Volvo’s venture capital fund and a handful of other investors are investing another $170 million to buy stakes in the company.Once the agreement is reached, Luminar will become a public company listed on the Nasdaq under the inventory symbol LAZR.
Volvo announced in May that it would begin the generation of Luminar laser sensors in its cars in 2022.
Luminar has called itself into the autonomous vehicle market by cutting off the load of its lidar sensors, which bounce lasers on elements to allow autonomous cars to “see” where they are.It is a popular approach for autonomous and expensive cars.
In 2019, Luminar brought a $500 system, economical for the niche lidar market, where costs can reach tens of thousands of dollars.
Russell’s rapid rise, now 25, he founded Luminar to pursue his interest in lidar at the age of 17 while still in high school.She attended Stanford to examine physics, but left at 18 after winning a Thiel Scholarship, which is Thiel’s startup accelerator that will pay academics to drop out of school and start a start-up for two years.
“School dropout is a smart thing for other people and can work very well if you’re very transparent about what to do and how you should get there, and about life goals in general,” Russell told CNBC in 2018..