Luminar, a leading global automotive technology company, agreed to acquire Freedom Photonics, a high-performance laser manufacturer based in Santa Barbara, California. Terms of the all stock transaction were not disclosed but the companies said the deal will not have a material impact on Luminar’s cash position or share count.
The transaction follows a multi-year collaboration and brings fundamental next-generation chip-scale laser technology, IP, and production expertise in-house for Luminar lidar systems.
Freedom Photonics’ portfolio includes photonic components, modules and subsystems.
Luminar said its vertical integration across core lidar components will enable low costs, supply chain security and improved performance.
This transaction follows the acquisition of subsidiaries Black Forest Engineering for custom signal processing chips in 2017 and Optogration Inc. in 2021 for receiver chips. This integration extends Luminar’s industry leadership on its path towards democratizing safety and autonomy for the automotive industry.
“Component-level innovation and integration is critical to our performance, cost and continued automotive technology leadership. Bringing Freedom Photonics into Luminar enables a new level of economies of scale, deepens our competitive moat and strengthens our future technology roadmap,” said Jason Eichenholz, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Luminar. “We’ve worked closely with the Freedom team for the past several years. They have proven to be the best in the world for breakthrough semiconductor laser chip technology, where both power and beam quality are needed simultaneously for true high resolution at long range.”
https://www.luminartech.com/technology/
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