Cepton, a famous lidar enterprise, received another large investment from Koito,

On August 30, cepton technologies, a lidar company headquartered in San Jose, announced that it had recently obtained a new financing of US $100 million. The company will seek large-scale production with this financing.

The company said that its main partner Koito manufacturing signed a non binding commitment that the former would provide the company with up to $100 million in additional funds.

Image source: cepton technologies official website

Founded in 2016, cepton technologies is led by industry veterans with decades of experience in advanced LiDAR and imaging technology, focusing on the mass market commercialization of high-performance and high-quality lidar solutions. Its target market is mainly ADAS. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has a center of excellence facility in Troy, Michigan, to provide local support to automotive customers in the Detroit area. In addition, cepton also has branches in Germany, Canada, Japan, India and China to serve fast-growing global customers.

Koito manufacturing, founded in 1915, is a first-class automotive lighting supplier headquartered in Japan. Its group has 31 companies in 13 countries around the world. Mercedes Benz, BMW, general motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan and so on are its downstream customers. In terms of cooperation with cepton, it is also remarkable: the long-term cooperation between the two sides began in 2017, which is actually Koito's third investment in cepton. Previously, Koito manufacturing had invested $100 million in cepton - initially $50 million in February 2020 and another $50 million in 2021.

It is reported that in July last year, cepton provided it with a non exclusive license to use key components and technologies of cepton to manufacture an MMT based ® Vista-x90 automobile level lidar (micro motion technology). Cepton's patented MMT ® (micro motion technology) lidar adopts non rotation, mirror free and friction free technology, which balances excellent performance, high reliability and low cost. Since winning the series product award, the development of vista-x90 products has made substantial progress.

According to a document of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Koito manufacturing currently owns less than 13% of cepton's shares, accounting for more than 44% of cepton's total revenue in the first half of this year.

Regarding this financing, Dr. Pei Jun, CEO and co-founder of cepton, commented: "I am very grateful for Koito's support as a key strategic investor and technology and manufacturing partner. From winning our ADAS series product design award to becoming a listed company, Koito has been walking through our journey with us. I look forward to achieving more milestones with us in the future."

Michiaki Kato, President of Koito, said that the two companies are currently preparing for the large-scale deployment of lidar solutions. He added: "we expect that our latest investment plan will help strengthen cepton's financial position and consolidate Koito's commitment in the field of lidar, making these lidars key components in automotive and non automotive applications."

Cepton's latest financial report for the three months ended June 30 shows that the company, like several other lidar developers, is still burning money quickly. In the first half of 2022, the company reported an operating loss of $32 million and sales of just over $4 million.

However, in February this year, cepton has already ushered in a milestone of its own: its successful listing on NASDAQ in the United States.

In addition, it is reported that in July last year, cepton obtained a fixed-point cooperation project from General Motors (GM) and will provide lidar equipment for the ultra cruise platform, the next generation of advanced driving assistance system of GM, in 2023-2027. It is expected to be applied to at least eight GM models. This means that cepton will continue to produce large quantities of lidar products for it. Through this transaction, cepton is expected to become the first vertical enterprise to provide mass market lidar solutions in 2023.

It is worth integrating that Koito has been a first-class supplier of general motors for decades. In the future, cepton may rely on Koito and general motors to win more OEMs' favor in the ADAS field in Japan and North America. Cooperation among the three parties will also help to form a rigorous supply chain system.

Source: OFweek