Luminar Reports Third Quarter 2023 Business Update and Financials

Successfully Passed Volvo Cars ‘Run at Rate’ Leading up to Start of Production

QoQ Free Cash Flow Improvement Demonstrates Inflection Towards Profitability

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today Luminar (NASDAQ: LAZR), a leading global automotive technology company, provided its quarterly business update and financial results for the third quarter of 2023. The company published a Letter to Shareholders on its Investor Relations website at https://investors.luminartech.com.

“For the first time at Luminar, we are realizing an inflection point in economies of scale and path to profitability,” said Austin Russell, Founder & CEO. “We successfully passed the Run at Rate production capacity and quality audit leading up to our first global vehicle launch with Volvo Cars. In conjunction, we are aggressively driving efficiency gains on free cash flow and gross margin, which we expect to continue through Q4 and beyond.”

2023 Company-Level Milestone Targets:

Luminar provided a progress report below on its three key business milestone targets to achieve by year-end 2023.

1. Industrialization & Scale

Year-end Goal: Bring the high volume, automated facility in Mexico online and meet Volvo Cars start of production (SOP) requirements.

Status: The company brought the high volume facility online in 1H’23, and has now fulfilled Volvo Cars’ production requirements for SOP new year by passing the Run at Rate.

• This quarter, Volvo Cars also completed its first installation of Iris onto a Volvo EX90 off of the production line at its US plant in Charleston.

2. Product and Technology

Year-end Goal: Enter Iris+ C phase; complete software^[1] requirements for Volvo and Mercedes programs; develop a next-gen LiDAR prototype.

Status: The company is on track to achieve each of these goals.

• Luminar has now commenced the process of series production tooling for Iris+ in partnership with TPK.

• Iris+ continues to go through optimization and validation testing cycles from its lead series production OEM, which includes DFM (design for manufacturability) updates.

• Luminar continues to deliver updates on its in-development firmware and software products^[1] to its OEM customers. The company successfully integrated its software with Volvo and Zenseact’s in-development system and middleware, while also integrating with Mercedes’ data collection vehicles.

• Luminar has successfully developed its next-generation LiDAR prototype in Q3, and provided live demonstrations of its point cloud performance to key OEM customers.

3. Business Growth

Year-end Goal: Add at least $1 billion to the Order Book.

Status: The company remains on track to achieve this goal.

• Throughout 2023, Luminar has continued to sign deals across hardware, software/AI, and semiconductors with new and existing customers.

• The company has now entered into a multi-year series production agreement with Gatik, the middle-mile autonomous logistics leader for some of the largest retail companies, to standardize Luminar products on autonomous light and medium-duty trucks.

Key Q3 2023 Financials:

In Q3’23, Luminar demonstrated a sharp improvement in both non-GAAP free cash flow and gross margin on its path to profitability. Luminar also met its Q3 guidance for non-GAAP EPS. The company maintained a strong balance sheet for accelerating business growth and reaching its profitability targets.

• Revenue: Q3 revenue was $17.0 million, up 33% compared to Q3’22.

• GAAP and Non-GAAP Gross Margin: Q3 GAAP gross loss was $18.2 million; Q3 Non-GAAP gross loss was $9.1 million, nearly halfway to achieving our goal of gross margin profitability by Q4’23 relative to Q2 levels.

• GAAP and Non-GAAP net loss: Q3 GAAP net loss was $134.3 million, or $(0.34) per share; Q3 Non-GAAP net loss was $84.1 million, or $(0.21) per share.

• Operating Cash Flow and Free Cash Flow: Net cash used in operating activities was $(56.5) million. Free cash flow (operating cash flow less capital expenditures) was $(60.8) million, roughly halfway to our target of improving FCF by 50% by Q4’23 relative to Q1/Q2 levels.

• Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities: Maintained strong cash position, including marketable securities, of $321.0 million as of September 30, 2023.

2023 Financial Outlook:

Luminar provided more firm ranges and adjusted certain elements of its 2023 financial guidance as follows.

• Revenue Growth: Luminar expects 2023 revenue of around $75 million, or roughly 85% YoY growth.

• Gross Margin: The company expects to reach gross margin positive on a non-GAAP basis in Q4’23.

• Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities (including Liquidity): The company continues to expect to end 2023 with a balance of greater than $300 million, which we believe is sufficient to reach profitability based on our current trajectory.

• Free Cash Flow: Luminar continues to expect to reduce its free cash flow spend by approximately 50% by year-end relative to Q1/Q2 levels. Specifically, Luminar expects Q4 operating cash flow in the range of $(30) million to ($35) million and free cash flow in the range of $(35) million to $(40) million.

Webcast Details:

Founder and CEO Austin Russell and CFO Tom Fennimore will host a video webcast, featuring a business update followed by a live Q&A session.

• What: Video webcast featuring quarterly business update, Q3 financials and live Q&A

• Date: Today, November 8, 2023

• Time: 2:00 p.m. PDT (5:00 p.m. EDT)

A live webcast of the event will be available on Luminar’s investor site at https://luminartech.com/quarterlyreview. A replay of the webcast will be available following the presentation. For additional information or to be added to Luminar’s investor distribution list, please visit us at https://investors.luminartech.com/ir-resources/email-alerts.

Footnote: ^[1]Luminar software capabilities are still in development and have not achieved technological feasibility or production ready status.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to disclosing financial measures prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), this press release contains certain non-GAAP financial measures and certain other metrics. Non-GAAP financial measures and these other metrics do not have any standardized meaning and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similarly titled measures and metrics presented by other companies. Luminar considers these non-GAAP financial measures and metrics to be important because they provide useful measures of the operating performance of the Company, exclusive of factors that do not directly affect what we consider to be our core operating performance, as well as unusual events. The Company’s management uses these measures and metrics to (i) illustrate underlying trends in the Company’s business that could otherwise be masked by the effect of income or expenses that are excluded from non-GAAP measures, and (ii) establish budgets and operational goals for managing the Company’s business and evaluating its performance. In addition, investors often use similar measures to evaluate the operating performance of a company. Non-GAAP financial measures and metrics are presented only as supplemental information for purposes of understanding the Company’s operating results. The non-GAAP financial measures and metrics should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

This release includes non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP cost of sales, gross loss/gross profit, net loss and Free Cash Flow. Non-GAAP cost of sales is defined as GAAP cost of sales adjusted for stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, and accelerated depreciation related to certain property, plant and equipment items. Non-GAAP gross loss/gross profit is defined as GAAP gross loss/gross profit adjusted for stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, and accelerated depreciation related to certain property, plant and equipment items. Non-GAAP net loss is defined as GAAP net loss adjusted for stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, accelerated depreciation related to certain property, plant and equipment items, legal reserve related to employee matters, transaction costs relating to acquisition activities, change in fair value of warrant liabilities, and provision for income taxes. Free Cash Flow is defined as operating cash flow less capital expenditures. We use “Order Book” as a metric to measure performance against anticipated achievement of planned key milestones of our business. Order Book is defined as the forward-looking cumulative billings estimate of Luminar’s hardware and software products over the lifetime of given vehicle production programs which Luminar’s technology is expected to be integrated into or provided for, based primarily on projected / actual contractual pricing terms and our good faith estimates of “take rate” of Luminar’s technology on vehicles. “Take rates” are the anticipated percentage of new vehicles to be equipped with Luminar’s technology based on a combination of original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) product offering decisions and predicted end consumer purchasing decisions. We include programs in our Order Book when (a) we have obtained a written agreement (e.g. non-binding expression of interest arrangement or an agreement for non-recurring engineering project) or public announcement with a major industry player, and (b) we expect to ultimately be awarded a significant commercial program. We believe Order Book provides useful information to investors as a supplemental performance metric as our products are currently in a pre-production stage and therefore there are currently no billings or revenues from commercial grade product sales. OEMs customarily place non-cancelable purchase orders with their automotive component suppliers only shortly before or during production. Consequently, we use Order Book to inform investors about the progress of expected adoption of our technologies by OEMs because there is, in our view, no other better metric available at our stage. The Order Book estimate may be impacted by various factors, as described in “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to the following: (i) None of our customers make contractual commitments to use our lidar sensors and software until all test and validation activities have been completed, they have finalized plans for integrating our systems, have a positive expectation of the market demand for our features, and unrelated to us, have determined that their vehicle is ready for market and there is appropriate consumer demand. Consequently, there is no assurance or guarantee that any of our customers, including any programs which we included in our Order Book estimates will ever complete such testing and validation or enter into a definitive volume production agreement with us or that we will receive any billings or revenues forecasted in connection with such programs; (ii) The development cycles of our products with new customers vary widely depending on the application, market, customer and the complexity of the product. In the automotive market, for example, this development cycle can be as long as seven or more years. Variability in development cycles make it difficult to reliably estimate the pricing, volume or timing of purchases of our products by our customers; (iii) Customers cancel or postpone implementation of our technology; (iv) We may not be able to integrate our technology successfully into a larger system with other sensing modalities; and (v) The product or vehicle model that is expected to include our lidar products may be unsuccessful, including for reasons unrelated to our technology. These risks and uncertainties may cause our future actual sales to be materially different than that implied by the Order Book metric.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “aims,” “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “set,” “continue,” “towards,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “should,” “would,” “forward,” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expected achievement and timing of manufacturing scale up, OEM production readiness, next-gen lidar prototype development, continued software development, program milestones and Order Book growth, and expected financial performance and position metrics. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of Luminar’s management and are not guarantees of actual performance. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements, including the risks discussed in the “Risk Factors,” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations'' sections of Luminar’s most recently filed periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, and other documents Luminar files with the SEC in the future. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made, and Luminar undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release.

About Luminar

Luminar is a global automotive technology company ushering in a new era of vehicle safety and autonomy. For the past decade, Luminar has built an advanced hardware and software platform to enable its more than 50 industry partners, including the majority of global automotive OEMs. From Volvo Cars and Mercedes-Benz for consumer vehicles and Daimler Trucks for commercial trucks, to tech partners NVIDIA and Mobileye, Luminar is poised to be the first automotive technology company to enable next-generation safety and autonomous capabilities for production vehicles. For more information please visit www.luminartech.com.

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Media Relations:
Milin Mehta
Press@luminartech.com

Investor Relations:
Aileen Smith
Investors@luminartech.com

Source: Luminar

Released November 8, 2023