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UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021
or
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from to
Commission file number 001-38791
LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware83-1804317
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
2603 Discovery DriveSuite 100OrlandoFlorida32826
(Address of Principal Executive Offices)(Zip Code)
(407) 900-5259
Registrant's telephone number, including area code
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each classTrading symbol(s)Name of each exchange on which registered
Class A common stock, par value of $0.0001 per shareLAZRThe Nasdaq Stock Market LLC
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes No
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports); and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.   Yes     No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filerAccelerated filer
Non-accelerated filerSmaller reporting company
Emerging growth company
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).    Yes     No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $4.6 billion as of June 30, 2021 (the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter) based upon the closing sale price on The Nasdaq Stock Market reported for such date. Shares of Common Stock held by each officer and director and by each person who may be deemed to be an affiliate have been excluded. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.
As of February 18, 2022, the registrant had 252,252,472 shares of Class A common stock and 97,088,670 shares of Class B common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
None.



TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page




CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Form 10-K”) includes forward-looking statements in addition to historical information. These forward-looking statements are included throughout this Form 10-K, including in the sections entitled “Business,” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and in other sections of this Form 10-K and include statements regarding product plans, future growth, market opportunities, strategic initiatives, industry positioning, customer acquisition and retention, revenue growth and anticipated impacts on our business of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related public health measures. In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as “outlook,” “believes,” “expects,” “future,” “potential,” “continues,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “seeks,” “approximately,” “predicts,” “intends,” “plans,” “estimates,” “anticipates” or the negative version of these words or other comparable words or phrases, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us, may include projections of our future financial performance, our anticipated growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business.
These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, our history of losses and our expectation that we will continue to incur significant expenses, including substantial R&D costs, and continuing losses for the foreseeable future as well as our limited operating history which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter; our strategic initiatives which may prove more costly than we currently anticipate and potential failure to increase our revenue to offset these initiatives; whether our lidar products are selected for inclusion in autonomous driving or ADAS systems by automotive OEMs or their suppliers, and whether we will be de-selected by any customers; the lengthy period of time from a major commercial win to implementation and the risks of cancellation or postponement of the contract or unsuccessful implementation; potential inaccuracies in our forward looking estimates of certain metrics and our future cost of goods sold (COGS) and bill of materials (BOM) and total addressable market; the discontinuation, lack of success of our customers in developing and commercializing products using our solutions or loss of business with respect to a particular vehicle model or technology package and whether end automotive consumers will demand and be willing to pay for such features; our inability to reduce and control the cost of the inputs on which we rely, which could negatively impact the adoption of our products and our profitability; the effect of continued pricing pressures, competition from other lidar manufacturers, automotive original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) cost reduction initiatives and the ability of automotive OEMs to re-source or cancel vehicle or technology programs which may result in lower than anticipated margins, or losses, which may adversely affect our business; general economic uncertainty and the effect of general economic conditions on our industry in particular, including the level of demand and financial performance of the autonomous vehicle industry and market adoption of lidar as well as developments in alternative technology and the increasingly competitive environment in which we operate; our ability to manage our growth and expand our business operations effectively, including into international markets, such as China, which exposes us to operational, financial and regulatory risks; adverse impacts due to limited availability and quality of materials, supplies, and capital equipment, or dependency on third-party service providers whether we will be able to successfully transition our engineering designs into high volume manufacturing, including our ability to transition to an outsourced manufacturing business model and whether we and our outsourcing partners and suppliers can successfully operate complex machinery; whether we can successfully select, execute or integrate our acquisitions; whether the complexity of our products results in undetected defects and reliability issues which could reduce market adoption of our new products, limit our ability to manufacture, damage our reputation and expose us to product liability, warranty and other claims; our ability to maintain and adequately manage our inventory; our ability to remediate the material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting; our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights; changes in personnel and availability of qualified personnel and dependence on Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer; the amount and timing of future sales and whether the average selling prices of our products could decrease rapidly over the life of the product as well as our dependence on a few key customers, who are often large corporations with substantial negotiating power; the effects of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic or other infectious diseases, health epidemics, pandemics and natural disasters on Luminar’s business; interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems and cybersecurity risks to our operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software in our lidar solutions; and those other factors discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in this Form 10-K. You should specifically consider the numerous risks outlined in the section of this Form 10-K entitled “Risk Factors.” Given these risks, uncertainties and other factors, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Although we believe the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance or achievements. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this Form 10-K to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Form 10-K or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.



In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain, and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.



PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS.
Overview
Luminar is a global automotive technology company ushering in a new era of vehicle safety and autonomy. We are enabling solutions for series production passenger cars and commercial trucks as well as other targeted markets.
Founded in 2012 by President and Chief Executive Officer Austin Russell, Luminar built a new type of lidar from the chip-level up, with technological breakthroughs across all core components. As a result, we have created what we believe is the lidar sensor that meets the demanding performance, safety, and cost requirements for Level 3 through Level 5 (see Market Outlook for definition of levels of automation) autonomous vehicles in production, bypassing the traditional limitations of legacy lidar technology, while also enabling Level 0 through Level 3 (Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (“ADAS”) and/or Luminar Proactive SafetyTM) with our Proactive SafetyTM solution. Integrating this advanced hardware with our custom developed software stack enables a turn-key autonomous solution to accelerate widespread adoption across automakers at series production scale.
Our lidar hardware and software products help set the standard for safety in the industry, and are designed to enable accurate and reliable detections of some of the most challenging “edge cases” autonomous vehicles can encounter on a regular basis. This is achieved by advancing existing lidar range and resolution to new levels, ensuring hard-to-see objects like a tire on the road ahead or a child that runs into the street are not missed, as well as by developing our software to interpret the data needed to inform autonomous and assisted driving decisions.
Our full-stack hardware and software autonomy solution for cars and trucks as well as our standalone lidar technology offerings have made us one of the leading technology partners for the world’s top OEMs.
Market Outlook
There continues to be a worldwide trend towards mobility and e-mobility and with a focus on safety and autonomy, specifically next generation ADAS systems and highway autonomy for passenger and commercial vehicles. The roadmap from existing driver assistance and comfort features all the way to self-driving value can be built through improved vehicle situational awareness provided by sensors and software installed on the vehicle.
Our products provide this situational awareness in a broad range of driving environments and allow for confident detection and planning at all vehicle speeds. Our portfolio encompasses sensor hardware, and perception and decision-making software that improve existing vehicle features and enable new levels of vehicle automation for consumer and commercial applications.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (“SAE”) defines levels of automation as follows, which SAE updates from time to time:
Level 0—No Driving Automation: In this level, the human is fully responsible for all dynamic driving tasks (“DDT”) at all times, even if an active safety system assists in the task. “L0” is defined as driver support features that are limited to warnings or momentary emergency intervention. Examples of warnings include blind spot warning or lane departure warnings. Examples of features with momentary assistance include automated emergency braking (“AEB”) and lane keep assist (“LKA”). These features are viewed as the basis of active safety, with AEB designed to reduce and/or mitigate the severity of low speed accidents, and LKA designed to prevent vehicles from crossing over into neighboring lanes or even worse, oncoming traffic.
Level 1—Driver Assistance: In this level, the human is fully responsible for all DDT at all times, even if an active safety system assists in the task. “L1” is defined as driver support features that performs part of the DDT by executing either the longitudinal or the lateral vehicle motion control subtask, and disengages immediately upon driver request. Examples include lane centering support (“LCS”) or the more widely adopted adaptive cruise control (“ACC”). These features are viewed as comfort features, easing the driving load from the driver during extended highway drives.
Levels 2—Partial Driving Automation: In this level, the human is fully responsible for all DDT at all times, even if an active safety system assists in the task. “L2” is defined as driver support features that performs part of the DDT by executing the longitudinal and the lateral vehicle motion control subtask, and disengages immediately upon driver request.
The term L2+ is often used for today’s higher capability systems, many of which add a driver monitoring system, such as camera or steering wheel sensing to ensure the human driver remains engaged, but require the driver remain attentive at all times. These systems are currently limited in Europe to certain operational design domains (“ODD”)



where they are often limited by roadway type such as divided highways, but are more broadly allowed in the United States, China, and other regions.
Levels 3—Conditional Driving Automation: In this level, the automated driving system (“ADS”) performs the entire DDT while engaged. The driver is responsible to verify the operational readiness of the ADS, determine whether to engage the system, and becomes the fallback-ready user when the ADS is engaged - the human driver must take back full control of the vehicle when requested. The ADS permits engagement and operation only within its ODD.
Levels 4—High Driving Automation: In this level, the ADS performs the entire DDT while engaged. The driver is responsible to verify the operational readiness of the ADS, determine whether to engage the system, and becomes a passenger when the ADS is engaged (when physically present in the vehicle) - the human driver is not required to perform the DDT or be the DDT fallback-ready user. “L4” assures the ADS will determine how to achieve the minimal risk condition (i.e., degraded state). The human driver may perform the DDT after the ADS reaches its ODD limit. He or she may request that the ADS disengage, or may become the driver after a requested disengagement. The ADS permits engagement and operation only within its ODD.
Levels 5—Full Driving Automation: In this level, the ADS performs the entire DDT while engaged. The driver is responsible to verify the operational readiness of the ADS, determine whether to engage the system, and becomes a passenger when the ADS is engaged (when physically present in the vehicle) - the human driver is not required to perform the DDT or be the DDT fallback-ready user. The ADS permits engagement under all driver-manageable on-road conditions. “L5” is essentially the same as L4, but without the ODD restriction. It is the designation for vehicles that when placed in automated driving mode, can drive everywhere and in all conditions without human intervention or even occupants.
We believe the market is currently segmented in two distinct categories: (1) ADAS or driver-assistance systems, where a human is in the driving loop and responsible, at minimum, to be a safety fallback and in most circumstances directly control part or all of the dynamic driving tasks; and (2) autonomous driving, where a human is “out-of-the-loop” (colloquially, “hands off” the steering wheel and “eyes off” the road).
Within these two segments, we believe the largest business opportunities exist in the areas of active safety and highway autonomy due to trends in safety technology standardization and consumer pain-point priority. These two applications have well aligned technology requirements that allow us to remain focused on a single product/solution that will allow OEM partners to achieve both. The broader autonomy market segment, specifically robo-taxis, represents strong long-term opportunity, but lidar technology must be seeded now during development even though high-volume production and deployment remains many years away.
These trends and safety needs apply to both the passenger and commercial vehicle markets. The autonomy use case and business case for commercial vehicles are simple: reduce operational costs and increase efficiencies. Passenger vehicles are more complex since the ability to deliver autonomy is more focused on the consumer’s comfort and convenience. We are working to help OEMs and consumers achieve these goals, but with the proper level of safety included.
Our initial focus for lidar technology is L3/L4 Highway Autonomy, and we aim to offer the sensing, perception, and function turn key system that will truly add value and give driving time back to the end consumer. This market is still developing, but we estimate it represents significant growth, and where we are a technology leader. In addition, vehicles enabled with our lidar will be capable of Proactive SafetyTM in which accidents are potentially completely avoided, which can benefit other autonomy solutions such as L0/L1/L2.
Passenger Vehicles
The passenger vehicle market is very large. We expect that approximately 100 million new passenger vehicles or more will be manufactured annually through 2030 and beyond. It is very difficult to replicate this volume in other markets, but it is also important to recognize that highway autonomy is not yet standard equipment. In order to realize a vehicle feature’s maximum societal benefits, the ultimate goal in the automotive industry is to achieve widespread adoption of next-gen safety and highway autonomous features in all vehicles. We expect a technology adoption ramp-up over time as automated functionality matures, costs and pricing are reduced, and consumers become more familiar with the full benefits and capabilities of a safe autonomy system. We believe there is a substantial market opportunity for our products when Proactive SafetyTM is coupled with autonomy due to the public benefit of the overall anticipated safety increase.
ADAS
ADAS volumes are primarily driven by both the European and North American markets. The European New Car Assessment Program (“NCAP”) requires a minimum level of crash mitigation functionality such as AEB (for vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists), LKA, speed alert systems and other ADAS features for a vehicle to have a 5-star rating. Furthermore, the European Union is moving toward mandates of these advanced functions.
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The U.S. is less focused on mandates at this time and instead allows the U.S. NCAP (known as the “Stars on Cars” program) and designations such as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety “Top Safety Pick” and “Top Safety Pick+” to drive adoption and provide consumers with an understanding of the vehicle’s advanced crash avoidance capability. Additionally, in working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), 20 automakers pledged to voluntarily equip virtually all new passenger vehicles by September 1, 2022 with a low-speed AEB system that includes forward-collision warning. With global safety rating programs and the OEMs competing to deliver more safety and comfort features to their customers, it is reasonable to expect near complete adoption of ADAS functionalities in new vehicles produced by Europe, U.S., Japan, and South Korea by 2026. We expect adoption rates to increase significantly in China as well.
We expect OEMs will demand Proactive SafetyTM and limited autonomy with the ability to upgrade functionality over time without hardware change. This expectation aligns well with the increasing number of OEMs developing new vehicle platforms that span their lineups.
Proactive SafetyTM
While the increased application of existing ADAS technology should help reduce the number of accidents and fatalities, we believe there is significant room for improvement concerning standard ADAS and crash avoidance. Today, the ADAS systems are designed to mitigate or reduce the severity of accidents and only avoid them under certain low-speed or ideal environmental conditions. Data suggests that the number of automotive fatalities globally still exceeds one million annually and the social costs of accidents continue to exceed $500 billion in the United States alone. As the autonomy market matures, we expect that OEMs and global NCAP programs will extend the functionality to intersection and crossing scenarios, which requires wider fields-of-view and faster detection. Global safety rating programs are also considering night and low-light performance in the future, further pushing the existing technology’s limits. We believe there is a significant opportunity to be able to reduce collisions with a capable lidar sensing system and software which can enable an understanding of the environment, which can help to avoid collisions by taking over the steering wheel and braking systems proactively. We believe our lidar is capable of significantly increasing the effectiveness of these active safety systems and supports proactive safety and greater crash avoidance measures using our long-range, high resolution, wide field-of-view, and perception software to be able to detect pedestrians and cyclists in the most challenging and complicated environmental sensing conditions. Furthermore, high-speed safety performance, specifically AEB, is increasingly important as hands-free highway driving assist systems are further delivered to the market, and the vehicles take on more of the driving responsibility.
Highway Autonomy
Since inception, our focus has been to enable safe and ubiquitous autonomy and we view highway autonomy, in combination with Proactive SafetyTM, as providing the most value to the end consumer for the foreseeable future. The market appears to be trending in this direction, targeting hands-off and eyes-off operations in a more controlled setting than the urban environment. While there is a significant focus on investment and development of robo-taxi solutions, passenger vehicles continue to be a voluminous market, and we expect the continued growth of highway automated functions over the next several years.
Commercial Trucking Market Outlook
The amount of goods transported by trucking globally continues to rise year-over-year. The application of ADAS technology continues to grow and the interest in autonomy for transport is at an all-time high. The business case for trucking highway autonomy includes: lower operating costs, increased availability of the vehicles and time spent on the road.
The first mandate for a vehicle AEB was in Europe in 2013, and there has been a growing application of the functionality since. Similar to passenger vehicles, Europe leads the market in a unified safety direction and has put mandates in place to drive lane keeping functions and expand the AEB functionality to include pedestrians and cyclists. This leadership is also a result of a market driven by the trucking manufacturers who set the technology distribution of vehicles and the ADAS vehicles and systems architectures. The trucking market in North America is driven by the fleet operators’ specifications and is fragmented. The lack of mandates from governing bodies has resulted in a market for ADAS that is very difficult to quantify and gain economies of scale across a small set of partners as is the case in Europe. As in passenger vehicles, we believe our lidar technology and sensing capability could greatly improve the L0 and L1 functionality for the trucking market as well. That said, our focus presently continues to be on L4 highway autonomous driving.
L4 highway autonomy is the target ODD for trucking because that is where a majority of the physical truck’s time is spent. The sensing needs among Europe, North America, South Korea, Japan, and other regions globally all differ slightly, but have similarities in the requirement for (i) long range detection to aid in extra braking time, (ii) farther detection of lanes to aid in proper lane centering and placement of potential obstacles in the correct lanes, and (iii) the vertical field of view and high placement on the cab to support close proximity detection in front of the vehicle, as well as overhead obstacles (such as bridges and overhead signs).
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Robo-Taxi and Delivery Market Outlook
The robo-taxi industry continues to evolve through investment and partnerships among technology companies, both established and startup, and mainstays from the automotive industry dominate the industry’s attention. This application is, however, the most difficult vehicle autonomy feature to solve for technically. It requires the ability to detect and classify hundreds of objects and predict motion for many of those objects, including pedestrians, electric scooters, and bicycles—all of which present as pedestrians, but move in very different ways. The environment consists of dynamic weather, steam from manholes and exhaust pipes, and oftentimes construction equipment causing dust and debris. Given the economic benefit an automated robo-taxi driving system could unlock, billions of dollars in funding and engineering efforts have been focused on developing solutions. The majority of the autonomous vehicle companies are operating in this space, awaiting a market that requires complex governmental support, funding for infrastructure, and a sensing and compute solution that must anticipate every possible mixed-traffic scenario.
Additionally, the initial ODD only requires low to medium speed operation, which can be met with less capable sensors. We expect that ultimately, the ODD will need to expand to the highway as robo-taxis and automated shuttle services move people from city centers to the airport and back, in particular. We expect limited robo-taxi R&D programs will continue to operate in varying levels of development and testing the rest of this decade.
Adjacent Markets
Although not our primary focus, the adjacent markets offer use cases uniquely suited for and potentially served by our technology. Our goal is to scale our core markets and utilize our robust solutions to best serve these adjacent markets where it makes sense for us and our partners. One adjacent market we are focused on in the near-term is the Aerospace and Defense market. We have a partnership with Airbus UpNext, Airbus SE’s subsidiary created to give future technologies a fast-track. The primary goal of the partnership is to use our technology to increase aircraft safety and ultimately enable operation with automatic obstacle detection. Additionally, we have invested in and have a partnership with Robotic Research OpCo, LLC (“Robotic Research”), a global leader in autonomous mobility and robotic solutions. We are working with Robotic Research on opportunities to advance autonomy, and they have selected us as their long-range lidar provider.
Our Products
Our Hydra, Iris and other products are described in further detail below:
Hydra lidar sensors are dynamically configurable dual-axis scan sensors that detect objects up to 500 meters away over a horizontal field of view of 120° and a software configurable vertical field of view of up to 30°. High point densities in excess of 200 points per square degree enable long-range detection, tracking, and classification over the whole field of view. We plan to stop new production and shipments of Hydra in 2022 as we transition to newer products.
Iris lidar sensors leverage the same core technology components in Hydra, but Iris is refined to meet the size, weight, cost, power, and reliability requirements of automotive qualified series production. Iris features two fully custom integrated circuits – driving both laser transmitter and receiver.
We expect to become a commercially viable long-range lidar supplier for automotive applications in L3 through L5 of vehicle autonomy, including full highway autonomy and urban and suburban autonomous driving. Iris is designed to be an efficient, automotive-grade, and affordable solution for series-production programs starting production in late 2022 or early 2023.
Autonomy Compute: Our electronic compute unit (“ECU”) is designed to accelerate the development of perception systems. Raw point-cloud inputs via ethernet, from up to four lidar sensors, are sent through a pipeline of processing layers to provide automated field coverage, enriched point-clouds, and ultimately, the perception outputs required for fusion and path planning.
Software
If a vehicle is to take an action on the road (e.g., accelerate, brake or steer) without human control, or even override human control, it must have an understanding of the driving environment. This understanding is called perception. The requirements for perception, and subsequently for the sensors providing necessary information underlying it, ultimately come from questions the vehicle system needs to have answered continuously to execute driving maneuvers safely in the real world. These questions are the same ones the human brain must continually assess to drive:
Where is the road, how is it organized into lanes, and which is the proper lane?
What driving rules apply to these lanes (e.g., lane change permission, speed, direction, traffic type)?
How is the vehicle moving now (speed, direction)?
What obstacles and other fellow travelers are in or near the roadway?
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Where are these external objects (which lane, sidewalk, etc.), and how are they moving?
With a confident and continuous understanding of the driving environment from our perception software, routes can be planned, risks can be assessed and actions can be sent to the vehicle’s control system. We, working closely with our partners, expect to deliver this full vehicle system capability.
Core Sensor Software: Our lidar sensors are configurable and capture valuable information extracted from the raw point-cloud to promote the development and performance of perception software. Therefore, core sensor software features help our commercial partners to integrate, control, and enrich the sensor data stream before perception processing. These features include:
Automatic sensor discovery to expedite system startup time;
Extrinsic calibration to automate multi-lidar geometrical alignment;
Proprietary middleware to streamline advanced user interaction with both our hardware and software;
Horizon tracking to automate region-of-interest scanning focused where it matters most, the road ahead;
Normal vector point attributes to associate common surfaces like drivable space quickly and accurately assess object headings without multiple frames; and
Velocity vector point attribute to provide both radial and crossing velocities, point-by-point within each frame.
Perception Software: Our plans for advanced perception software is to build on the core sensor software features and transform lidar point-cloud data into actionable information about the integrated vehicle and its environment. We anticipate these features to include:
Semantic Segmentation—Each measured point contains an object class attribute. This feature is expected to enable smart detection and tracking algorithms as well as intelligent vehicle reactions to different types of objects.
Instance detection and Tracking—Frame-level instance detection of objects, lane markings as well as road surfaces and free space combined with our highway-focused tracking algorithms are intended to provide reliable, safe and stable data for decision-making algorithms.
State Estimation—Continually predicting and correcting an object’s location, velocity, and orientation through lidar odometry, real-time mapping, and localization.
Sentinel: In March 2021, we announced our plans for a full-stack hardware and software solution, Sentinel. Development of Sentinel continues, and we plan to allow customers to purchase Sentinel as a complete “turn-key” solution that enables Proactive SafetyTM and Highway Autonomy functions or just components of Sentinel. We are in the preliminary designing and coding phase of the development and have not reached technological feasibility. We anticipate these features to include:
Highway Autonomy: In order to deliver highway autonomy to OEMs like Volvo, we are leveraging Zenseact and other ecosystem partners to further our internal understanding of the full autonomy systems. Highway autonomy will enable exit to exit functionality that takes full responsibility of the driving task even if the driver does not resume control in edge case emergencies. Early roll outs will be in limited highways, in limited environmental conditions and broaden as validation activities ensure safe ODD expansion. This capability is meant to allow passenger vehicles and commercial trucks alike to take occupants out of the driving loop so that they can utilize their time on other tasks. Further, highway autonomy systems will leverage over the air updates allowing them to grow even safer over time and expand their ODD through the life of the vehicle.
Proactive SafetyTM: Our Proactive SafetyTM capabilities in development are expected to represent a new generation of vehicle safety, meant to enable accident avoidance instead of merely mitigating crash severity. It is expected to serve as a continuously monitoring system that assesses risk to the vehicle and recommends corrective actions and more importantly intercedes proactively when a crash is imminent. This feature is expected to utilize our extended range of confident situational awareness to broaden the ODD of legacy ADAS features, new safety features, and driver out-of-the-loop autonomous features.
As of the end of 2021, we demonstrated initial Proactive SafetyTM functions as part of alpha prototype of Sentinel. The technical feasibility of the final Sentinel solution and perception software had not been established and these products are still in the designing and coding phase of development.
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Competition
The market for lidar-enabled vehicle features, on and off road, is an emerging one with many potential applications in the development stage. As a result, we face competition for lidar hardware business from a range of companies seeking to have their products incorporated into these applications. We believe we hold a strong position based on both hardware product performance and maturity, and also our growing ability to develop deeply integrated software capabilities needed to provide autonomous and safety solutions to our customers.
Although we believe our lidar sensor solution for automotive autonomy applications achieves the industry’s requirements and perception capabilities to enable safe hand-off, eyes-off driving, we face potential competition from Tier 1 companies, and other technology companies. We face competition from various emerging technology companies who we believe offer presently more limited solutions for niche applications and in certain cases are non-automotive grade solutions. We also compete with certain OEMs who have their own internal lidar products and approaches. In the meantime, our on-going software development will further differentiate our product offerings away from “lidar only” competitors. While lidar competitors may continue to emerge, we believe our high performance lidar with a strong intellectual property portfolio and software products help establish a competitive advantage for Luminar.
Within the automotive autonomy software space, the competitive landscape is still nascent and primarily focused on developing robo-taxi technologies as opposed to autonomous software solutions for passenger vehicles. Other autonomous software providers include: (i) in-house OEM software teams (e.g. GM/Cruise and Ford/Argo); (ii) automotive silicon providers (e.g. NVIDIA and Intel/Mobileye); (iii) large technology companies (e.g. Google/Waymo and Amazon/Zoox); and (iv) newer technology companies focused on autonomous software (e.g. Aurora and TuSimple). We partner with several of these autonomous software providers to provide our Lidar and other products.
Beyond automotive, the adjacent markets, including delivery bots and mapping, among others, are highly competitive. There are entrenched incumbents and competition, including from China, particularly around ultra-low cost products that are widely available.
Intellectual Property
Our success and competitive advantage depend in part upon our ability to develop and protect our core technology and intellectual property. We own a portfolio of intellectual property, including patents and registered trademarks, confidential technical information, and expertise in the development of lidar technology and software for autonomous vehicles.
We have filed patent and trademark applications in order to further secure these rights and strengthen our ability to defend against third parties who may infringe on our rights. We also rely on trade secrets, design and manufacturing know-how, continuing technological innovations, and licensing and exclusivity opportunities to maintain and improve our competitive position. Additionally, we protect our proprietary rights through agreements with our commercial partners, supply-chain vendors, employees, and consultants, as well as close monitoring of the developments and products in the industry.
As of January 2022, we had 109 issued patents (107 U.S. and 2 international), 93 pending applications (63 U.S. and 30 international), of which one U.S. application has been allowed. In addition, we have three registered U.S. trademarks, 16 registered foreign trademarks and five pending trademark applications. Our patents and patent applications cover a broad range of system level and component level aspects of our key technology including, among other things, lidar system, laser, scanner, receiver, and perception technology.
Manufacturing Process
We build and design certain critical components in-house, for example, our receiver ASIC and InGaAs photonic diode. We have an internal advanced manufacturing line located in Orlando, Florida, where we develop the manufacturing and testing processes, including capturing any related intellectual property, necessary to develop our products. Our manufacturing processes and knowledge are a key differentiator for us in the market.
Extended component lead times and bottlenecks in the supply chain have created supply challenges for the entire market, and we expect these challenges to continue through 2022.
In May 2021, we announced our series manufacturing partnerships with Celestica and Fabrinet.
Research and Development
Our research and development activities occur in Orlando, Palo Alto, Colorado Springs and Boston in the United States, and in Munich, Germany. Our Orlando site is primarily focused on developing sensor hardware, firmware, and controllers. Our Palo Alto and Germany sites are primarily focused on software development. The Colorado Springs and Boston locations create the custom ASIC chips and photonic diodes used in our lidar sensors.
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Our research and development team is responsible for creating new technology and expanding lidar and perception software functionality. The team also designs the physical product, ensures it is designed for manufacturability and performs testing. The team also partners with our operations and supply chain functions to develop scalable commercial and reliable manufacturing processes and direct production material procurement.
Sales and Marketing
We use customer feedback to specifically tailor our product and approach to build and expand our relationships with potential commercial partners. We collect feedback directly from commercial partners to garner insights that help drive the business and product. We also work with analysts and higher education institutions to conduct studies, test and validate technology performance, providing key proof points for commercial partners considering our products. In parallel, marketing and communications drive our brand equity and narrative through ongoing announcements, campaigns, events, speaking opportunities, and public relations efforts.
The automotive value chain characteristically involves research and feasibility studies, followed by long-term product development cycles including testing and qualification with the automakers, and long-term production supply. In general, automaker agreements do not guarantee potential volumes, vehicle models, or supply timing to suppliers during this product development cycle. Instead, typically, after initial research and feasibility agreements and extensive competitive negotiations, automakers enter into development agreements that establish collaborations or partnerships to develop and integrate technology into the automaker’s vehicles or platforms intended for series production, frequently accompanied by non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) projects. While these collaboration or partnership agreements provide automakers the right to terminate the relationship without purchasing any production volume, in practice, factors like difficulty of integrating complex technologies, sunken costs relating to NRE projects, impact on product roadmap, time to market, and risk of being unable to secure future supply creates significant cause for automakers to cancel collaboration or development agreements. Automakers typically only enter into blanket purchase orders or other definitive supply agreements with binding commitments and order fulfillment several months before production begins. We identify major commercial wins only when we have entered into a collaboration or partnership agreement and have reason to believe that such engagement is expected to result in future series production. Given the customary business practices in the automotive industry, there remains potential risk that our major commercial wins may not ultimately generate any significant revenue (See Item 1A, Risk Factors for definition of major commercial win and further discussion of risk).
Government Regulation
Automotive safety regulation in the area of autonomy is split between two categories: (1) SAE Level 0-2 (including active safety, driver assist, and conditional autonomy); and (2) SAE Level 3-5 (partial through full autonomy) (commonly referred to as “higher autonomy”). In general, throughout the world, there is a positive legal environment that encourages consumer sale and use of SAE Level 0-2 functionality. The legal environment for SAE Level 3-5 functionality varies, generally encouraging the safe testing and development of higher autonomy functions, but restricting consumer use in personal vehicles and commercial use, as in automated trucking and taxis in many regions.
In the U.S., at both the federal and state level, nearly all SAE Level 0-2 functionality is permitted, while SAE Level 3-5 enjoys a positive environment for on-road testing and development, but mixed opportunities to deploy in consumer and commercial use. Federal regulation does not prohibit higher levels of autonomy today, but if National Highway Traffic Safety Administration deems an autonomy system unsafe, it would order a recall to remove vehicles from the road. Thus far, several U.S. states have expressly permitted SAE Level 4-5 levels of autonomy, while many remain silent, and others have laws that limit driverless operation. We believe regulations related to automotive autonomy technologies will continue to evolve to remove hurdles as state and federal regulators gain more experience with the technology.
In Europe, China, and the rest of the world, most automotive safety is regulated by a common system under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). Under current UN/ECE standards, SAE Level 0-2 functionality may be deployed with certain restrictions such as road type and with driver monitoring, but higher SAE Level 3-5 functionality is limited to testing only. Safety regulators continue to work on standards for autonomy, but we expect this development process to be slower than in the U.S. However, China has increasingly departed from the common UN/ECE standards and is more likely to create its own regulation allowing higher levels of autonomy in the nearer term with a timeline more aligned with the U.S.
Given the intense work in these regulatory areas, there is a positive environment for deploying our lidar technology and Proactive SafetyTM today in SAE Level 0-2 systems. While there is risk that SAE Level 3-5 systems may be delayed by regulation in some countries, we expect a workable path forward over the next several years as a more permissive regulatory and political environment develops.
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Employees
We have always prioritized the team’s importance, with values-based hiring that encompasses competency, ingenuity, and culture. Through multiple growth phases, we have drawn talent and leadership from the automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics and other technology industries to achieve our vision. As of December 31, 2021, excluding contractors, we had almost 500 full-time employees California, Florida, Colorado, Massachusetts, in the United States, Munich, Germany and other locations. None of our employees are represented by a labor union.
Our human capital resources objectives include, as applicable, identifying, recruiting, retaining, incentivizing and integrating our existing and new employees, advisors and consultants. The principal purposes of our equity and cash incentive plans are to attract, retain and reward personnel through the granting of stock-based and cash-based compensation awards, in order to increase stockholder value and the success of our company by motivating such individuals to perform to the best of their abilities and achieve our objectives.
Corporate Social Responsibilities and Sustainability
We are committed to active and responsible corporate citizenship. Our Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) program is divided into seven elements (diversity and inclusion; human resources; finance/accounting; responsible sourcing; environmental, health and safety; trade compliance; and business ethics), each spearheaded by company leaders and subject matter experts in their respective areas. The CSR team supports, advises, and provides oversight for each element. We expect ADAS and automated driving technologies to provide strong social benefits including reducing roadway injuries and fatalities, including in urban areas, more efficient roadways that reduce commuting times and CO2 emissions, and offer improved productivity.
Available Information
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K reports, along with all other reports and amendments filed with or furnished to the SEC, are publicly available free of charge on the Investors section of our website at www.luminartech.com or at www.sec.gov as soon as reasonably practicable after these materials are filed with or furnished to the SEC. We also use our website as a tool to disclose important information about the company and comply with our disclosure obligations under Regulation Fair Disclosure. Our governance guidelines, code of conduct and Board committee charters are also posted on the Investors section of our website. The information on our website (or any webpages referenced in this Annual Report on Form 10-K) is not part of this or any other report we file with, or furnish to, the SEC.
INFORMATION ABOUT OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
Our executive officers as of March 1, 2022 are as follows:
Austin Russell, 26, has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and as Chairperson and member of our board of directors since December 2020 and prior to this, served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Luminar Technologies, Inc. prior to its business combination with Gores Metropoulos, Inc. (“Legacy Luminar”) and as a member of its board of directors since founding Legacy Luminar. Mr. Russell developed his first visioning system at age eleven by building prototype supercomputers and optoelectronic systems with real-world applications in mind. He wrote his first patent application at 12, and over the next four years worked on a host of photonics and imaging related technologies before he later became an independent researcher at the Beckman Laser Institute. After being recruited to Stanford for Applied Physics, he was awarded the Thiel Fellowship at 17 to pursue Legacy Luminar full-time with a vision to develop a new kind of sensing technology to make autonomous vehicles both safe and ubiquitous.
Thomas J. Fennimore, 46, has served as our Chief Financial Officer since December 2020 and prior to this, held the same position with Legacy Luminar since July 2020. Prior to joining Luminar, Mr. Fennimore served as the Global Head of Automotive and the Co-Head of the Industrials Group at Jefferies Group, LLC from September 2014 to May 2020. From July 1997 to September 2014, Mr. Fennimore worked at Goldman Sachs in a variety of roles with increasing responsibility, most notably as Global Head of Automotive and Co-Head of the Asia Industrials Group. Mr. Fennimore holds a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in engineering from Swarthmore College.
Alan Prescott, 43, has served as our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary since April 2021 and is an automotive and autonomous industry legal expert, engineer, and 20-year veteran from top OEM and technology companies. Mr. Prescott joined Luminar from Tesla, where he spent four years, acting most recently as General Counsel. Prior to Tesla, he led Uber’s Advanced Technology Group’s legal team as senior counsel, overseeing commercial, regulatory, litigation, privacy, and cybersecurity. Mr. Prescott’s career began at Ford Motor Company as a safety engineer before receiving his law degree from Georgetown University, after which he spent over ten years leading various legal operations within the automaker, concentrating on product development and manufacturing, as well as several years as Special Counsel to the General Counsel.
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ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.
Risk Factor Summary
Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider all information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this prospectus and “Management’s discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations,” before purchasing our securities. These risks are discussed more fully in the section titled “Risk Factors.” These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following:
our history of losses and our expectation that we will continue to incur significant expenses, including substantial R&D costs, and continuing losses for the foreseeable future as well as our limited operating history which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter;
our strategic initiatives which may prove more costly than we currently anticipate and potential failure to increase our revenue to offset these initiatives;
whether our lidar products are selected for inclusion in autonomous driving or ADAS systems by automotive OEMs or their suppliers, and whether we will be de-selected by any customers;
the lengthy period of time from a major commercial win to implementation and the risks of cancellation or postponement of the contract or unsuccessful implementation;
potential inaccuracies in our forward looking estimates of certain metrics and our future cost of goods sold (COGS) and bill of materials (BOM) and total addressable market;
the discontinuation, lack of success of our customers in developing and commercializing products using our solutions or loss of business with respect to a particular vehicle model or technology package and whether end automotive consumers will demand and be willing to pay for such features;
our inability to reduce and control the cost of the inputs on which we rely, which could negatively impact the adoption of our products and our profitability;
the effect of continued pricing pressures, competition from other lidar manufacturers, automotive original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) cost reduction initiatives and the ability of automotive OEMs to re-source or cancel vehicle or technology programs which may result in lower than anticipated margins, or losses, which may adversely affect our business;
general economic uncertainty and the effect of general economic conditions on our industry in particular, including the level of demand and financial performance of the autonomous vehicle industry and market adoption of lidar as well as developments in alternative technology and the increasingly competitive environment in which we operate;
our ability to manage our growth and expand our business operations effectively, including into international markets, such as China, which exposes us to operational, financial and regulatory risks;
adverse impacts due to limited availability and quality of materials, supplies, and capital equipment, or dependency on third-party service providers;
whether we will be able to successfully transition our engineering designs into high volume manufacturing, including our ability to transition to an outsourced manufacturing business model and whether we and our outsourcing partners and suppliers can successfully operate complex machinery;
whether we can successfully select, execute or integrate our acquisitions;
whether the complexity of our products results in undetected defects and reliability issues which could reduce market adoption of our new products, limit our ability to manufacture, damage our reputation and expose us to product liability, warranty and other claims;
our ability to maintain and adequately manage our inventory;
our ability to remediate the material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting;
our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights;
changes in personnel and availability of qualified personnel and dependence on Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer;
the amount and timing of future sales and whether the average selling prices of our products could decrease rapidly over the life of the product as well as our dependence on a few key customers, who are often large corporations with substantial negotiating power;
the effects of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic or other infectious diseases, health epidemics, pandemics and natural disasters on Luminar’s business;
interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems and cybersecurity risks to our operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software in our lidar solutions;
strict government regulation that is subject to amendment, repeal or new interpretation and our ability to comply with modified or new laws and regulations applying to our business;
whether the concentration of our stock ownership and voting power limits the ability of our stockholders to influence corporate matters; and
risks related to our indebtedness.
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Risk Factors
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
We are an early stage company with a history of losses, and we expect to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future.
We have incurred net losses on an annual basis since our inception. We incurred net losses of $238.0 million, $362.3 million and $94.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2021. 2020 and 2019, respectively. We believe that we will continue to incur operating and net losses each quarter until at least the time we begin commercial deliveries of our lidar-based products, which are not expected to begin until late 2022 or early 2023 and may occur later or not at all as we face challenges setting up outsourced manufacturing. Even if we successfully develop and sell our lidar and software solutions, there can be no assurance that they will be commercially successful. Our potential profitability is dependent upon the successful development and successful commercial introduction and acceptance of our lidar solutions, which may not occur.
We expect the rate at which we will incur losses to be significantly higher in future periods as we:
expand our software development;
continue to utilize our third-party partners for design, testing and commercialization;
expand our production capabilities to produce our lidar solutions, including costs associated with outsourcing the production of our lidar solutions;
expand our design, development, installation and servicing capabilities to address more products for more customers in more countries;
build up inventories of parts and components for our lidar solutions;
produce an inventory of our lidar solutions; and
increase our sales and marketing activities and develop our distribution infrastructure.
Because we will incur the costs and expenses from these efforts before we receive incremental revenues with respect thereto, our losses in future periods will be significant. In addition, we may find that these efforts are more expensive than we currently anticipate or that these efforts may not result in revenues, which would further increase our losses.
Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.
We have been focused on developing lidar products for autonomous driving systems since 2012. This relatively limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter. Risks and challenges we have faced or expect to face include our ability to:
produce and deliver lidar and software products of acceptable performance, volume, cost, and quality;
forecast our revenue and budget for and manage our expenses;
attract new customers and retain existing customers in the automotive supply chain where sourcing and volume production targets are not guaranteed;
comply with existing and new or modified laws and regulations applicable to our business;
plan for and manage capital expenditures for our current and future products, and manage our supply chain and supplier relationships related to our current and future products;
anticipate and respond to macroeconomic changes and changes in the markets in which we operate;
maintain and enhance the value of our reputation and brand;
effectively manage our growth and business operations, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business;
develop and protect intellectual property;
hire, integrate and retain talented people at all levels of its organization; and
successfully develop new solutions to enhance the experience of customers and consumers.
If we fail to address the risks and difficulties that we face, including those associated with the challenges listed above as well as those described elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section, our business, financial condition and results of operations
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could be adversely affected. Further, because we have limited historical financial data and operate in a rapidly evolving market, any predictions about our future revenue and expenses may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a longer operating history or operated in a more predictable market. We have encountered in the past, and will encounter in the future, risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies with limited operating histories in rapidly changing industries. If our assumptions regarding these risks and uncertainties, which we use to plan and operate our business, are incorrect or change, or if we do not address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We continue to implement strategic initiatives designed to grow our business. These initiatives may prove more costly than we currently anticipate and we may not succeed in increasing our revenue in an amount sufficient to offset the costs of these initiatives and to achieve and maintain profitability.
We continue to make investments and implement initiatives designed to grow our business, including:
investing in R&D;
expanding our sales and marketing efforts to attract new customers;
investing in new applications and markets for our products;
investing in our manufacturing processes and partnerships to scale production;
protecting our intellectual property; and
investing in legal, accounting, human resources, and other administrative functions necessary to support our operations as a public company.
These initiatives may prove more expensive than we currently anticipate, and we may not succeed in increasing our revenue, if at all, in an amount sufficient to offset these higher expenses and to achieve and maintain profitability. The market opportunities we are pursuing are at an early stage of development, and it may be many years before the end markets we expect to serve generate demand for our products at scale. Our revenue may be adversely affected for a number of reasons, including the development and/or market acceptance of new technology that competes with our lidar products, if certain automotive OEMs or other market participants change their autonomous vehicle technology, failure of our customers to commercialize autonomous systems that include our solutions, our ability to create, validate, and manufacture at high volume, and ship product to customers, our inability to effectively manage our inventory or manufacture products at scale, our inability to enter new markets or help our customers adapt our products for new applications or our failure to attract new customers or expand orders from existing customers or increasing competition. Furthermore, it is difficult to predict the size and growth rate of our target markets, customer demand for our products, commercialization timelines, developments in autonomous sensing and related technology, the entry of competitive products, or the success of existing competitive products and services. For these reasons, we do not expect to achieve profitability over the near term. If our revenue does not grow over the long term, our ability to achieve and maintain profitability may be adversely affected, and the value of our business may significantly decrease.
If our lidar products are not selected for inclusion in autonomous driving systems or ADAS by automotive OEMs or their suppliers, our business will be materially and adversely affected.
Automotive OEMs and their suppliers design and develop autonomous driving and ADAS technology over several years. These automotive OEMs and suppliers undertake extensive testing or qualification processes prior to placing orders for large quantities of products such as our lidar products, because such products will function as part of a larger system or platform and must meet certain other specifications. We spend significant time and resources to have our products selected by automotive OEMs and their suppliers. We define the term “major win” or “major commercial win” to have occurred 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) based on past experience in high volume production, leadership in autonomy, or market leadership of said major industry player we expect to ultimately be awarded a significant commercial program, including OEM series production programs. If we do not achieve a major commercial win with respect to a particular vehicle model, we may not have an opportunity to supply our products to the automotive OEM for that vehicle model for a period of many years. In many cases, this period can be as long as five to seven or more years. If our products are not selected by an automotive OEM or its suppliers for one vehicle model or if our products are not successful in that vehicle model, it is unlikely that our product will be deployed in other vehicle models of that OEM. If we fail to win a significant number of vehicle models from one or more of automotive OEMs or their suppliers, our business, results of operations and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected. For more information about certain risks related to product selection, see the Risk Factor captioned “The period of time from a major commercial win to implementation is long and we are subject to the risks of cancellation or postponement of the contract or unsuccessful implementation.”
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The period of time from a major commercial win to implementation is long and we are subject to the risks of cancellation or postponement of the contract or unsuccessful implementation.
Prospective customers, including those in the automotive industry, generally must make significant commitments of resources to test and validate our products and confirm that they can integrate with other technologies before including them in any particular system, product or model. While certain customers have executed non-binding expression of interest arrangement or engaged us for non-recurring engineering projects while they are evaluating our products, 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 vehicle is ready for market and there is appropriate consumer demand. We expect that only after this point, will our customers consider entering into definitive volume production agreements. Through the end of 2021, none of our customers have completed their on-going testing and validation or have entered into definitive volume production agreements with us and there is no assurance or guarantee that any of our customers, including any for which we have announced a “major win” or “major commercial win” will ever complete such testing and validation or enter into a definitive volume production agreement with us or that we will receive any revenues forecasted in connection with such “major win” or “major commercial win”. The development cycles of our products with new customers varies 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. The development cycle in certain other markets can be several months to a few years. These development cycles result in us investing our resources prior to realizing any revenue from the commercialization or obtaining any firm commitments of pricing, volume or timing of purchases of our products by our customers. Further, we are subject to the risk that customers cancel or postpone implementation of our technology, as well as that we will not be able to integrate our technology successfully into a larger system with other sensing modalities. Further, our revenue could be less than forecasted if the system, product or vehicle model that includes our lidar products is unsuccessful, including for reasons unrelated to our technology. Long development cycles and product cancellations or postponements may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Thus, even if we are successful or have been successful in obtaining major commercial wins, long development cycles and product cancellations or postponements and failures to successfully integrate our technology may materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our forward looking estimates of certain financial metrics may prove inaccurate.
We use various estimates in formulating our business plans. We base our estimates upon a number of assumptions that are inherently subject to significant business and economic uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control. These estimates include our assessment of whether a “major win” or “major commercial win” has occurred. Our estimates therefore may prove inaccurate, causing the actual amount to differ from our estimates. These factors include, without limitation:
the extent to which customers who have selected Luminar for a major commercial win which include our hardware and software products;
the extent to which Luminar meets contractual terms and conditions;
the extent to which our technology is successfully integrated into our customers’ vehicles;
the timing of when our customers adopt our technology into their vehicles on a commercial basis which could be delayed for regulatory, safety or reliability issues unrelated to our technology;
undetected or unknown errors, defects or reliability issues in our hardware or software which could reduce the market adoption of our new products or delay or stop production;
loss of business with respect to, the failure or lack of commercial success of a vehicle model for which we are a significant supplier for reasons unrelated to our technology; For more information about certain risks related to discontinuation or loss of business, see the Risk Factor captioned “The discontinuation, lack of commercial success, or loss of business with respect to a particular vehicle model or technology package for which we are a significant supplier could reduce our sales and adversely affect our profitability;”
a decline, for any reason, in the production levels of our customers, particularly with respect to models which incorporate our technology;
customer cancellations of their contracts;
if Luminar’s products are included as part of a vehicle option package, the extent to which end customers select it; and
other risk factors set forth in this Annual Report.
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The discontinuation, lack of commercial success, or loss of business with respect to a particular vehicle model or technology package for which we are a significant supplier could reduce our sales and adversely affect our profitability.
If we are able to secure major commercial wins and our solutions are included in these autonomous driving and ADAS products, we expect to enter into supply agreements with the relevant customer. Market practice dictates that these supply agreements typically require us to supply a customer’s requirements for a particular vehicle model or autonomous driving or ADAS product, rather than supply a set number of products. These contracts can have short terms and/or can be subject to renegotiation, sometimes as frequently as annually, all of which may affect product pricing, and may be terminated by our customers at any time. Therefore, even if we are successful in obtaining major commercial wins and the systems into which our products are built are commercialized, the discontinuation of, the loss of business with respect to, or a lack of commercial success of a particular vehicle model or technology package for which we are a significant supplier could mean that the expected sales of our products will not materialize, materially and adversely affecting our business.
Information concerning our future cost of goods sold (COGS) and bill of materials (BOM) estimates may prove inaccurate.
We periodically provide estimates of future cost of goods sold and bill of materials, which by necessity, are projections based on anticipated rates of future production of our customers and the timing of related expenditures, and there are uncertainties inherent in the creation and interpretation of such data.
Pricing negotiated in our supply agreements for key components like the receiver, ASIC and laser are dependent on volume estimates which may not be realized. Most of our components are manufactured using technologies that are highly complex and consequently, estimates of BOM and cost of goods sold may fluctuate due to many variable factors and assumptions, including but not limited to the following:
meeting certain volume estimates;
our reliance on key inputs and our inability to reduce and control the cost of such inputs;
our dependence on producing or sourcing certain key components and raw materials at acceptable price levels and our ability to adequately reduce and control the costs of such key components; For more information about certain risks related to our reliance on key inputs and our inability to reduce and control the costs of such inputs, see the Risk Factor captioned “We are reliant on key inputs and our ability to reduce and control the cost of such inputs could negatively impact the adoption of our products and our profitability;”
the risk of shortages and long lead times in the supply of key components and the risk that our suppliers discontinue or modify components used in its products; For more information about certain risks related to reliance on third party suppliers, see the Risk Factor captioned “We rely on third-party suppliers and because some of the raw materials and key components in our products come from limited or single source suppliers, we are susceptible to supply shortages, long lead times for components, and supply changes, any of which could disrupt our supply chain and could delay deliveries of our products to customers;”
lack of consistency and adequate quality and quantity of piece parts, other raw materials and other bill of materials items;
contract negotiations and the execution of firm supply agreements;
future versions of our product design incorporating new components meeting our customers’ requirements and specifications. For more information about certain risks related to product selection, see the Risk Factor captioned “The period of time from a major commercial win to implementation is long and we are subject to the risks of cancellation or postponement of the contract or unsuccessful implementation;”
the qualification of new versions of our key components. For more information about certain risks related to qualification, see the Risk Factor captioned “If our lidar products are not selected for inclusion in autonomous driving systems or ADAS by automotive OEMs or their suppliers, our business will be materially and adversely affected;”
defects in production processes (including system assembly) either within our facilities or at our suppliers;
any transitions or changes in our production process, planned or unplanned; and
other risk factors set forth in this Annual Report.
We are reliant on key inputs and our inability to reduce and control the cost of such inputs could negatively impact the adoption of our products and our profitability.
The production of our sensors is dependent on producing or sourcing certain key components and raw materials at acceptable price levels. If we are unable to adequately reduce and control the costs of such key components, we will be unable
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to realize manufacturing costs targets, which could reduce the market adoption of our products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers, and harm our brand, business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
Continued pricing pressures, automotive OEM cost reduction initiatives and the ability of automotive OEMs to re-source or cancel vehicle or technology programs may result in lower than anticipated margins, or losses, which may adversely affect our business.
Cost-cutting initiatives adopted by our customers often result in increased downward pressure on pricing. We expect that our agreements with automotive OEMs may require step-downs in pricing over the term of the agreement or, if commercialized, over the period of production. In addition, our automotive OEM customers often reserve the right to terminate their supply contracts for convenience, which enhances their ability to obtain price reductions. Automotive OEMs also possess significant leverage over their suppliers, including us, because the automotive component supply industry is highly competitive, serves a limited number of customers and has a high fixed cost base.
Accordingly, we expect to be subject to substantial continuing pressure from automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to reduce the price of our products. It is possible that pricing pressures beyond our expectations could intensify as automotive OEMs pursue restructuring, consolidation and cost-cutting initiatives. If we are unable to generate sufficient production cost savings in the future to offset price reductions, our gross margin and profitability would be adversely affected.
We expect to incur substantial R&D costs and devote significant resources to identifying and commercializing new products, which could significantly reduce our profitability and may never result in revenue to us.
Our future growth depends on penetrating new markets, adapting existing products to new applications and customer requirements, and introducing new products that achieve market acceptance. We plan to incur substantial, and potentially increasing, R&D costs as part of our efforts to design, develop, manufacture and commercialize new products and enhance existing products. Our R&D expenses were $88.9 million, $38.7 million and $37.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively, and are likely to grow in the future. Because we account for R&D as an operating expense, these expenditures will adversely affect our results of operations in the future. Further, our R&D program may not produce successful results, and our new products may not achieve market acceptance, create additional revenue or become profitable.
Market adoption of lidar is uncertain. Developments in alternative technology may adversely affect the demand for our lidar technology. If market adoption of lidar does not continue to develop, or develops more slowly than we expect, or our investments in educating our customers about the advantages of lidar fail, our business will be adversely affected.
While our lidar-based ADAS and autonomous driving solutions can be applied to different use cases across end markets, nearly all of our revenue is generated from automotive applications. Despite the fact that the automotive industry has engaged in considerable effort to research and test lidar products for ADAS and autonomous driving applications, the automotive industry may not introduce lidar products in commercially available vehicles. We continually study emerging and competing sensing technologies and methodologies and we may add new sensing technologies. However, lidar products remain relatively new and it is possible that other sensing modalities, or a new disruptive modality based on new or existing technology, including a combination of technology, will achieve acceptance or leadership in the ADAS and autonomous driving industries. For example, significant developments in alternative technologies, such as cameras and radar, may materially and adversely affect our business in ways we do not currently anticipate. Existing and other camera and radar technologies may emerge as customers’ preferred alternative to our solutions. Any failure by us and our R&D efforts to develop new or enhanced technologies or processes, or to react to changes in existing technologies, could materially delay our development and introduction of new and enhanced products in the autonomous vehicle industry, which could result in the loss of competitiveness of our lidar solutions, decreased revenue and a loss of market share to competitors. As technologies change, we plan to upgrade or adapt our lidar solutions with the latest technology. However, our solutions may not compete effectively with alternative systems if we are not able to source and integrate the latest technology into our existing lidar solutions.
Even if lidar products are used in initial generations of autonomous driving technology and certain ADAS products, we cannot guarantee that lidar products will be designed into or included in subsequent generations of such commercialized technology. In addition, we expect that initial generations of autonomous vehicles will be focused on limited applications, such as robo-taxis, and that mass market adoption of autonomous technology may lag behind these initial applications significantly. The speed of market growth for ADAS or autonomous vehicles is difficult if not impossible to predict, and it is more difficult to predict this market’s future growth in light of the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Educating customers about lidar, its advantages over other sensing technologies and lidar’s ability to convey value in different industries and deployments is also an integral part of developing new business and the lidar market generally and if customers have a negative perception of, or experience with, lidar or a competitor’s lidar products they may be reluctant to adopt lidar in general or specifically our products. Our investments and efforts to educate potential customers and the market generally and to counter any adverse statements made by competitors or other market participants thus may not be successful.
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Although we currently believe we are a leader in lidar-based systems for the autonomous vehicle market, by the time mass market adoption of autonomous vehicle technology is achieved, we expect competition among providers of sensing technology based on lidar and other modalities to increase substantially. If commercialization of lidar products is not successful, or not as successful as we or the market expects, or if other sensing modalities gain acceptance by developers of autonomous driving systems or ADAS, automotive OEMs, regulators and safety organizations or other market participants by the time autonomous vehicle technology achieves mass market adoption, our business, results of operations and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected.
We are investing in and pursuing market opportunities outside of the automotive markets, including in the aerospace and defense and aviation. We believe that our future revenue growth, if any, will depend in part on our ability to expand within new markets such as these and to enter new markets as they emerge. Each of these markets presents distinct risks and, in many cases, requires us to address the particular requirements of that market.
Addressing these requirements can be time-consuming and costly. The market for lidar technology outside of automotive applications is relatively new, rapidly developing and unproven in many markets or industries. Many of our customers outside of the automotive industry are still in the testing and development phases and we cannot be certain that they will commercialize products or systems with our lidar products or at all. We cannot be certain that lidar will be sold into these markets, or any market outside of automotive market, at scale. Adoption of lidar products, including our products, outside of the automotive industry will depend on numerous factors, including: whether the technological capabilities of lidar and lidar-based products meet users’ current or anticipated needs, whether the benefits of designing lidar into larger sensing systems outweigh the costs, complexity and time needed to deploy such technology or replace or modify existing systems that may have used other modalities such as cameras and radar, whether users in other applications can move beyond the testing and development phases and proceed to commercializing systems supported by lidar technology and whether lidar developers such as us can keep pace with rapid technological change in certain developing markets and the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the length of any associated work stoppages. If lidar technology does not achieve commercial success outside of the automotive industry, or if the market develops at a pace slower than we expect, our business, results of operation and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected.
We may experience difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations.
We expect to experience significant growth in the scope and nature of our operations. Our ability to manage our operations and future growth will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, compliance programs and reporting systems. We are currently in the process of strengthening our compliance programs, including our compliance programs related to export controls, privacy and cybersecurity and anti-corruption. We may not be able to implement improvements in an efficient or timely manner and may discover deficiencies in existing controls, programs, systems and procedures, which could have an adverse effect on our business, reputation and financial results.
We rely on third-party suppliers and because some of the raw materials and key components in our products come from limited or single source suppliers, we are susceptible to supply shortages, long lead times for components, and supply changes, any of which could disrupt our supply chain and could delay deliveries of our products to customers.
Some of the components that go into the manufacture of our solutions are sourced from third-party suppliers. To date, we have produced our products in relatively limited quantities for use in R&D programs. Although we do not have any experience in managing our supply chain to manufacture and deliver our products at scale, our future success will depend on our ability to manage our supply chain to manufacture and deliver our products at scale. Some of the key components used to manufacture our products come from limited or single source suppliers. We are therefore subject to the risk of shortages and long lead times in the supply of these components, including integrated circuits which are in short supply in the near term, and the risk that our suppliers discontinue or modify components used in its products. For example, electronics industry is presently experiencing supply shortages and long lead times from semiconductor suppliers. We have a global supply chain and the COVID-19 pandemic and other health epidemics and outbreaks may adversely affect our ability to source components in a timely or cost effective manner from our third-party suppliers due to, among other things, work stoppages or interruptions. For example, our products depend on lasers and we currently consume a substantial portion of the available market. Any shortage of these lasers could materially and adversely affect our ability to manufacture our solutions. In addition, the lead times associated with certain components are lengthy and preclude rapid changes in quantities and delivery schedules. We have in the past experienced and may in the future experience component shortages and price fluctuations of certain key components and materials, and the predictability of the availability and pricing of these components may be limited. Component shortages or pricing fluctuations could be material in the future. In the event of a component shortage, supply interruption or material pricing change from suppliers of these components, we may not be able to develop alternate sources in a timely manner or at all in the case of sole or limited sources. Developing alternate sources of supply for these components may be time-consuming, difficult, and costly and we may not be able to source these components on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all, which may undermine our ability to meet our requirements or to fill customer orders in a timely manner. Any interruption or delay in the supply of any of these
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parts or components, or the inability to obtain these parts or components from alternate sources at acceptable prices and within a reasonable amount of time, would adversely affect our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries to our customers. This could adversely affect our relationships with our customers and channel partners and could cause delays in shipment of our products and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, increased component costs could result in lower gross margins. Even where we are able to pass increased component costs along to our customers, there may be a lapse of time before we are able to do so such that we must absorb the increased cost. If we are unable to buy these components in quantities sufficient to meet our requirements on a timely basis, we will not be able to deliver products to our customers, which may result in such customers using competitive products instead of ours.
Because our sales have been primarily to customers making purchases for R&D projects and our orders are project-based, we expect our results of operations to fluctuate on a quarterly and annual basis, which could cause our stock price to fluctuate or decline.
Our quarterly results of operations have fluctuated in the past and may vary significantly in the future. As such, historical comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful. In particular, because our sales to date have primarily been to customers making purchases for R&D, sales in any given quarter can fluctuate based on the timing and success of our customers’ development projects. Accordingly, the results of any one quarter should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Our quarterly financial results may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control and may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. These fluctuations could adversely affect our ability to meet our expectations or those of securities analysts, ratings agencies or investors. If we do not meet these expectations for any period, the value of our business and our securities could decline significantly. Factors that may cause these quarterly fluctuations include, without limitation, those listed below:
the timing and magnitude of orders and shipments of our products in any quarter;
pricing changes we may adopt to drive market adoption or in response to competitive pressure;
our ability to retain our existing customers and attract new customers;
our ability to develop, introduce, manufacture and ship in a timely manner products that meet customer requirements;
disruptions in our sales channels or termination of its relationship with important channel partners;
delays in customers’ purchasing cycles or deferments of customers’ purchases in anticipation of new products or up-dates from us or our competitors;
fluctuations in demand pressures for our products;
the mix of products sold in any quarter;
the duration of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the time it takes for economic recovery;
the timing and rate of broader market adoption of autonomous systems utilizing our solutions across the automotive and other market sectors;
market acceptance of lidar and further technological advancements by our competitors and other market participants;
the ability of our customers to commercialize systems that incorporate our products;
any change in the competitive dynamics of our markets, including consolidation of competitors, regulatory developments and new market entrants;
our ability to effectively manage our inventory;
changes in the source, cost, availability of and regulations pertaining to materials we use;
adverse litigation, judgments, settlements or other litigation-related costs, or claims that may give rise to such costs; and
general economic, industry and market conditions, including trade disputes.
Our transition to an outsourced manufacturing business model may not be successful, which could harm our ability to deliver products and recognize revenue.
We are in the initial stages of transitioning from a manufacturing model in which we primarily manufactured and assembled our products at our Orlando, Florida location, to one where we rely on third-party manufacturers in Mexico, Thailand and potentially other foreign and domestic locations. We believe the use of third-party manufacturers will have
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benefits, but in the near term, while we are beginning manufacturing with new partners, we may lose revenue, incur increased costs and potentially harm our customer relationships.
Reliance on third-party manufacturers reduces our control over the manufacturing process, including our ability to finalize changes through validation, reduced control over quality, product costs and product supply and timing. We may experience delays in shipments or issues concerning product quality from our third-party manufacturers. If any of our third-party manufacturers experience interruptions, delays or disruptions in supplying our products, including by natural disasters, the global COVID-19 pandemic, other health epidemics and outbreaks, or work stoppages or capacity constraints, our ability to ship products to distributors and customers would be delayed. In addition, unfavorable economic conditions could result in financial distress among third-party manufacturers upon which we rely, thereby increasing the risk of disruption of supplies necessary to fulfill our production requirements and meet customer demands. Additionally, if any of our third-party manufacturers experience quality control problems in their manufacturing operations and our products do not meet customer or regulatory requirements, we could be required to cover the cost of repair or replacement of any defective products. These delays or product quality issues could have an immediate and material adverse effect on our ability to fulfill orders and could have a negative effect on our operating results. In addition, such delays or issues with product quality could adversely affect our reputation and our relationship with our channel partners. If third-party manufacturers experience financial, operational, manufacturing capacity or other difficulties, or experience shortages in required components, or if they are otherwise unable or unwilling to continue to manufacture our products in required volumes or at all, our supply may be disrupted, we may be required to seek alternate manufacturers and we may be required to re-design our products. It would be time-consuming, and could be costly and impracticable, to begin to use new manufacturers and designs, and such changes could cause significant interruptions in supply and could have an adverse effect on our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries and may subsequently lead to the loss of sales. While we take measures to protect our trade secrets, the use of third-party manufacturers may also risk disclosure of our innovative and proprietary manufacturing methodologies, which could adversely affect our business.
Our sales and operations in international markets, including our manufacturing operations, expose us to operational, financial and regulatory risks.
International sales comprise a significant amount of our overall revenue. Sales to international customers accounted for 29%, 71% and 17% of our revenue in 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively. We are committed to growing our international sales. While we have committed resources, and are working closely with OEMs and other collaborators outside the United States, to expand our international operations and sales channels, these efforts may not be successful. We have also commenced international manufacturing operations. International operations, including any manufacturing operations, are subject to a number of other risks, including:
foreign currency and exchange rate fluctuations;
local economic conditions;
political and economic instability, international terrorism and anti-American sentiment, particularly in emerging markets;
global or regional health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or other health epidemics and outbreaks;
potential for violations of anti-corruption laws and regulations, such as those related to bribery and fraud;
tariffs, other trade barriers and restrictions and preference for locally branded products, and laws and business practices favoring local competition;
potential consequences of, and uncertainty related to, the “Brexit” process in the United Kingdom, which could lead to additional expense and complexity in doing business there;
increased difficulty in managing inventory;
difficulties in collecting receivables from foreign entities;
less effective protection of intellectual property;
foreign government regulatory requirements and stringent regulation of the autonomous or other systems or products using our products and stringent consumer protection and product compliance regulations, including but not limited to General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union, European competition law, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and the European Ecodesign Directive that are costly to comply with and may vary from country to country;
difficulties and costs of staffing and managing foreign operations;
import and export laws and requirements and the impact of tariffs;
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potentially adverse tax consequences and changes in local tax and customs duty laws or changes in the enforcement, application or interpretation of such laws; and
U.S. government’s restrictions on certain technology transfer to certain countries of concern.
The occurrence of any of these risks could negatively affect our international business or increase our costs and decrease our profit margins and consequently materially and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
We, our outsourcing partners and our suppliers may rely on complex machinery for our production, which involves a significant degree of risk and uncertainty in terms of operational performance and costs.
We, our outsourcing partners and our suppliers may rely on complex machinery for the production, assembly and installation of our lidar solutions, which will involve a significant degree of uncertainty and risk in terms of operational performance and costs. Our production facilities and the facilities of our outsourcing partners and suppliers consist of large-scale machinery with high capital expense combining many components. These components may suffer unexpected malfunctions from time to time and will depend on repairs and spare parts to resume operations, which may not be available when needed. Unexpected malfunctions of these components may significantly affect the intended operational efficiency. Operational performance and costs can be difficult to predict and are often influenced by factors outside of our control, such as, but not limited to, scarcity of natural resources, environmental hazards and remediation, costs associated with decommissioning of machines, labor disputes and strikes, difficulty or delays in obtaining governmental permits, damages or defects in electronic systems, industrial accidents, fire, seismic activity and natural disasters. Should operational risks materialize, it may result in the personal injury to or death of workers, the loss of production equipment, damage to production facilities, monetary losses, delays and unanticipated fluctuations in production, environmental damage, administrative fines, increased insurance costs and potential legal liabilities, all which could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition or operating results.
As part of growing our business, we may make acquisitions. If we fail to successfully select, execute or integrate our acquisitions, then our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected, and our stock price could decline.
From time to time, we may undertake acquisitions to add new products and technologies, acquire talent, gain new sales channels or enter into new markets or sales territories. In addition to possible stockholder approval, we may need approvals and licenses from relevant government authorities for the acquisitions and to comply with any applicable laws and regulations, which could result in increased delay and costs, and may disrupt our business strategy if we fail to do so. Furthermore, acquisitions and the subsequent integration of new assets, businesses, key personnel, customers, vendors and suppliers require significant attention from our management and could result in a diversion of resources from our existing business, which in turn could have an adverse effect on our operations. Acquired assets or businesses may not generate the financial results we expect. Acquisitions could result in the use of substantial amounts of cash, potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities, the occurrence of significant goodwill impairment charges, amortization expenses for other intangible assets and exposure to potential unknown liabilities of the acquired business. Moreover, the costs of identifying and consummating acquisitions may be significant.
To date, we have limited experience with acquisitions and the integration of acquired technology and personnel. Failure to successfully identify, complete, manage and integrate acquisitions could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and could cause our stock price to decline.
Any failure to grow our relationship with Chinese customers and our proposed international expansion into China could expose us to substantial business, regulatory, political, financial and economic risks.
We have entered into relationships with Chinese customers pursuant to which we plan to establish a presence in China to support the collaboration between the parties and enable series production of autonomous vehicles utilizing our technology by 2023. Any failure in our ability to establish our presence in China, grow our relationship with Chinese OEMs, or to realize the anticipated benefits of our relationships could harm our brand, prospects, financial condition and operating results and have an adverse effect on our business. Our proposed expansion into China could also expose us to substantial risks associated with doing business in China, such as, taxation, inflation, manufacturing, environmental and other regulations, foreign currency exchange rates, political risks, intellectual property risks, the labor market and property and financial regulations. Additionally, we would need to maintain compliance with the market’s ongoing development of standards to define deployment requirements for higher levels of autonomy. Our ability to operate in China may be adversely affected by changes in, or our failure to comply with, Chinese laws, regulations and standards. As we hire personnel to maintain our operations in China, we would also be exposed to risks associated with any changes to the employment and labor laws in China, which could increase our operating costs in China. There is also significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the United States and China with respect to political risks, including but not limited to, trade policies, treaties, government regulations and tariffs.
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The complexity of our products could result in unforeseen delays or expenses from undetected defects, errors or reliability issues in hardware or software which could reduce the market adoption of our new products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers, expose us to product liability and other claims and adversely affect our operating costs.
Our products are highly technical and very complex and require high standards to manufacture and have in the past and will likely in the future experience defects, errors or reliability issues at various stages of development. We may be unable to timely release new products, manufacture existing products, correct problems that have arisen or correct such problems to our customers’ satisfaction. Additionally, undetected errors, defects or security vulnerabilities, especially as new products are introduced or as new versions are released, could result in serious injury to the end users of technology incorporating our products, or those in the surrounding area, our customers never being able to commercialize technology incorporating our products, litigation against us, negative publicity and other consequences. These risks are particularly prevalent in the highly competitive autonomous driving and ADAS markets. Some errors or defects in our products may only be discovered after they have been tested, commercialized and deployed by customers. If that is the case, we may incur significant additional development costs and product recall, repair or replacement costs. These problems may also result in claims, including class actions, against us by our customers or others. Our reputation or brand may be damaged as a result of these problems and customers may be reluctant to buy our products, which could adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers and could adversely affect our financial results.
In addition, we could face material legal claims for breach of contract, product liability, fraud, tort or breach of warranty as a result of these problems. Defending a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and may divert management’s attention and adversely affect the market’s perception of us and our products. In addition, our business liability insurance coverage could prove inadequate with respect to a claim and future coverage may be unavailable on acceptable terms or at all. These product-related issues could result in claims against us and our business could be adversely affected.
We may be subject to product liability or warranty claims that could result in significant direct or indirect costs, which could adversely affect our business and operating results.
Our customers use our solutions in autonomous driving and ADAS applications, which present the risk of significant injury, including fatalities. We may be subject to claims if a product using our lidar technology is involved in an accident and persons are injured or purport to be injured. Any insurance that we carry may not be sufficient or it may not apply to all situations. Similarly, our customers could be subjected to claims as a result of such accidents and bring legal claims against us to attempt to hold us liable. In addition, if lawmakers or governmental agencies were to determine that the use of our products or autonomous driving or certain ADAS applications increased the risk of injury to all or a subset of our customers, they may pass laws or adopt regulations that limit the use of our products or increase our liability associated with the use of our products or that regulate the use of or delay the deployment of autonomous driving and ADAS technology. Any of these events could adversely affect our brand, relationships with customers, operating results or financial condition.
We typically provide a limited-time warranty on our products. The occurrence of any material defects in our products could make us liable for damages and warranty claims. In addition, we could incur significant costs to correct any defects, warranty claims or other problems, including costs related to product recalls. Any negative publicity related to the perceived quality of our products could affect our brand image, partner and customer demand, and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. Also, warranty, recall and product liability claims may result in litigation, including class actions, the occurrence of which could be costly, lengthy and distracting and adversely affect our business and operating results.
If we do not maintain sufficient inventory or if we do not adequately manage our inventory, we could lose sales or incur higher inventory-related expenses, which could negatively affect our operating results.
To ensure adequate inventory supply, we must forecast inventory needs and expenses, place orders sufficiently in advance with our suppliers and manufacturing partners and manufacture products based on our estimates of future demand for particular products. Fluctuations in the adoption of lidar products may affect our ability to forecast our future operating results, including revenue, gross margins, cash flows and profitability. Our ability to accurately forecast demand for our products could be affected by many factors, including the rapidly changing nature of the autonomous driving and ADAS markets in which we operate, the uncertainty surrounding the market acceptance and commercialization of lidar technology, the emergence of new markets, an increase or decrease in customer demand for our products or for products and services of our competitors, product introductions by competitors, the COVID-19 pandemic, other health epidemics and outbreaks, and any associated work stoppages or interruptions, unanticipated changes in general market conditions and the weakening of economic conditions or consumer confidence in future economic conditions. If our lidar products are commercialized in autonomous driving and ADAS applications, both of which are experiencing rapid growth in demand, we may face challenges acquiring adequate supplies to manufacture our products and/or we and our manufacturing partners may not be able to manufacture our products at a rate necessary to satisfy the levels of demand, which would negatively affect our revenue. This risk may be exacerbated by the fact that we may not carry or be able to obtain for our manufacturers a significant amount of inventory to satisfy short-term
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demand increases. If we fail to accurately forecast customer demand, we may experience excess inventory levels or a shortage of products available for sale.
Inventory levels in excess of customer demand may result in inventory write-downs or write-offs and the sale of excess inventory at discounted prices, which would adversely affect our financial results, including our gross margin, and have a negative effect on our brand. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand for our products, we, or our manufacturing partners, may not be able to deliver products to meet our requirements, and this could result in damage to our brand and customer relationships and adversely affect our revenue and operating results.
The average selling prices of our products could decrease rapidly over the life of the product, which may negatively affect our revenue and gross margin.
We may experience declines in the average selling prices of our products generally as our customers seek to commercialize autonomous systems at prices low enough to achieve market acceptance. In order to sell products that have a falling average unit selling price and maintain margins at the same time, we will need to continually reduce product and manufacturing costs. To manage manufacturing costs, we must engineer the most cost-effective design for our products. In addition, we continuously drive initiatives to reduce labor cost, improve worker efficiency, reduce the cost of materials, use fewer materials and further lower overall product costs by carefully managing component prices, inventory and shipping cost. We also need to continually introduce new products with higher sales prices and gross margin to maintain our overall gross margin. If we are unable to manage the cost of older products or successfully introduce new products with higher gross margin, our revenue and overall gross margin would likely decline.
Adverse conditions in the automotive industry or the global economy more generally could have adverse effects on our results of operations.
While we make our strategic planning decisions based on the assumption that the markets we are targeting will grow, our business is dependent, in large part on, and directly affected by, business cycles and other factors affecting the global automobile industry and global economy generally. Automotive production and sales are highly cyclical and depend on general economic conditions and other factors, including consumer spending and preferences, changes in interest rates and credit availability, consumer confidence, fuel costs, fuel availability, environmental impact, governmental incentives and regulatory requirements, and political volatility, especially in energy-producing countries and growth markets. In addition, automotive production and sales can be affected by our automotive OEM customers’ ability to continue operating in response to challenging economic conditions and in response to labor relations issues, regulatory requirements, trade agreements and other factors, such as COVID-19 impact on supply of semiconductors for automobiles. The volume of automotive production in North America, Europe and the rest of the world has fluctuated, sometimes significantly, from year to year, and we expect such fluctuations to give rise to fluctuations in the demand for our products. Any significant adverse change in any of these factors may result in a reduction in automotive sales and production by our automotive OEM customers and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Because lidar is new and since many of the markets in which we compete are new and rapidly evolving, it is difficult to forecast long-term end-customer adoption rates and demand for our products.
We are pursuing opportunities in markets that are undergoing rapid changes, including technological and regulatory changes, and it is difficult to predict the timing and size of the opportunities. For example, autonomous driving and lidar-based ADAS applications require complex technology. Because these automotive systems depend on technology from many companies, commercialization of autonomous driving or ADAS products could be delayed or impaired on account of certain technological components of our or others not being ready to be deployed in vehicles. Although we currently are engaged with multiple commercial customers, these companies may not be able to commercialize our technology immediately, or at all. Regulatory, safety or reliability developments, many of which are outside of our control, could also cause delays or otherwise impair commercial adoption of these new technologies, which will adversely affect our growth. Our future financial performance will depend on our ability to make timely investments in the correct market opportunities. If one or more of these markets experience a shift in customer or prospective customer demand, our products may not compete as effectively, if at all, and they may not be designed into commercialized products. Given the evolving nature of the markets in which we operate, it is difficult to predict customer demand or adoption rates for our products or the future growth of the markets in which we operate. As a result, any financial projections in this Annual Report and any market opportunity estimates and forecasts of market growth necessarily reflect various estimates and assumptions that may not prove accurate and these projections could differ materially from actual results due to the risks included in this “Risk Factors” section, among others. If demand does not develop or if we cannot accurately forecast customer demand, the size of our markets, inventory requirements or our future financial results, our business, results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected. Even if markets experience the forecasted growth described in this Annual Report, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all, since our business is subject to many risks and uncertainties set forth in this Annual Report. Accordingly, the forecasts and estimates of market size
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and growth described in this Annual Report, including our estimates of the size of our total addressable market should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.
We currently have and target customers that are large corporations with substantial negotiating power, exacting product standards and potentially competitive internal solutions. If we are unable to sell our products to these customers, our prospects and results of operations will be adversely affected.
Many of our customers and potential customers are large, multinational corporations with substantial negotiating power relative to us and, in some instances, may have internal solutions that are competitive to our products. These large, multinational corporations also have significant development resources, which may allow them to acquire or develop independently, or in partnership with others, competitive technologies. Meeting the technical requirements and securing major commercial wins with any of these companies will require a substantial investment of our time and resources. We cannot assure you that our products will secure major commercial wins from these or other companies or that we will generate meaningful revenue from the sales of our products to these key potential customers. If our products are not selected by these large corporations or if these corporations develop or acquire competitive technology, it will have an adverse effect on our business.
We are substantially dependent on our partnership with a few key customers, and our business could be materially and adversely affected if our partnership with any of such customers were terminated. Our financial position and results could be materially and adversely affected if we were unable to collect our invoices for any of our key customers.
We are dependent on a collection of large customers with strong purchasing power. In 2021, 2020 and 2019, our top 10 customers represented 87%, 94% and 79% of our revenue, respectively. In 2021, Daimler and Volvo, in 2020, Volvo and in 2019, Volvo, Toyota and Northrop Grumman accounted for more than 10% of our annual revenue. The loss of business from any of our major customers (whether by lower overall demand for our products, cancellation of existing contracts or product orders or the failure to design in our products or award us new business) could have a material adverse effect on our business.
To the extent autonomous vehicle and ADAS systems become accepted by major automotive OEMs, we expect that we will rely increasingly for our revenue on Tier 1 suppliers through which automotive OEMs procure components. We expect that these Tier 1 suppliers will be responsible for certain hardpoint and software configuration activities specific to each OEM, and they may not exclusively carry our solutions.
There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain our relationship with any of our key customers, for example Volvo, Daimler etc. and secure orders for our products. If we are unable to maintain our relationship any of our key customers, or if our arrangement is modified so that the economic terms become less favorable to us, then our business, financial results and position would be materially adversely affected. There is also a risk that one or more of our major customers could be unable to pay our invoices as they become due or that a customer will simply refuse to make such payments if it experiences financial difficulties. If a major customer were to enter into bankruptcy proceedings or similar proceedings whereby contractual commitments are subject to stay of execution and the possibility of legal or other modification, we could be forced to record a substantial loss.
If we are unable to establish and maintain confidence in our long-term business prospects among customers and analysts and within our industry or are subject to negative publicity, then our financial condition, operating results, business prospects and access to capital may suffer materially.
Customers may be less likely to purchase our lidar solutions if they are not convinced that our business will succeed or that our service and support and other operations will continue in the long term.
Similarly, suppliers and other third parties will be less likely to invest time and resources in developing business relationships with us if they are not convinced that our business will succeed. Accordingly, in order to build and maintain our business, we must maintain confidence among customers, suppliers, analysts, ratings agencies and other parties in our products, long-term financial viability and business prospects. Maintaining such confidence may be particularly complicated by certain factors including those that are largely outside of our control, such as our limited operating history, customer unfamiliarity with our lidar solutions, any delays in scaling production, delivery and service operations to meet demand, competition and uncertainty regarding the future of autonomous vehicles or our other services and our production and sales performance compared with market expectations.
We operate in a highly competitive market and some market participants have substantially greater resources. We compete against a large number of both established competitors and new market entrants.
The markets for sensing technology applicable to autonomous solutions in the automobile industry are highly competitive. Our future success will depend on our ability to remain a leader in our targeted markets by continuing to develop and protect from infringement advanced lidar technology in a timely manner and to stay ahead of existing and new competitors. Our competitors are numerous and they compete with us directly by offering lidar products and indirectly by attempting to solve some of the same challenges with different technology. We face competition from camera and radar companies, other
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developers of lidar products, Tier 1 suppliers and other technology and automotive supply companies, some of which have significantly greater resources than we do. In the automotive market, our competitors have commercialized both lidar and non-lidar-based ADAS technology that has achieved market adoption, strong brand recognition and may continue to improve. Other competitors are working towards commercializing autonomous driving technology and either by themselves, or with a publicly announced partner, have substantial financial, marketing, R&D and other resources. Some of our customers in the autonomous vehicle and ADAS markets have announced development efforts or made acquisitions directed at creating their own lidar-based or other sensing technologies, which would compete with our solutions. We do not know how close these competitors are to commercializing autonomous driving systems or novel ADAS applications. In markets outside of the automotive industry, our competitors, like us, seek to develop new sensing applications across industries. Even in these emerging markets, we face substantial competition from numerous competitors seeking to prove the value of their technology.
Additionally, increased competition may result in pricing pressure and reduced margins and may impede our ability to increase the sales of our products or cause us to lose market share, any of which will adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The markets in which we compete are characterized by rapid technological change, which requires us to continue to develop new products and product innovations and could adversely affect market adoption of our products.
While we intend to invest substantial resources to remain on the forefront of technological development, continuing technological changes in sensing technology, lidar and the markets for these products, including the ADAS and autonomous driving industries, could adversely affect adoption of lidar and/or our products, either generally or for particular applications. Our future success will depend upon our ability to develop and introduce a variety of new capabilities and innovations to our existing product offerings, as well as introduce a variety of new product offerings, to address the changing needs of the markets in which we offer our products. For example, we are currently working on developing perception software products. We cannot guarantee that such software or other new products will be released in a timely manner, or at all, or achieve market acceptance. Delays in delivering new products that meet customer requirements could damage our relationships with customers and lead them to seek alternative sources of supply. In addition, our success to date has been based on the delivery of our solutions to R&D programs in which developers are investing substantial capital to develop new systems. Our continued success relies on the success of the R&D phase of these customers as they expand into commercialized projects. As autonomous technology reaches the stage of large-scale commercialization, we will be required to develop and deliver solutions at price points that enable wider and ultimately mass-market adoption. Delays in introducing products and innovations, the failure to choose correctly among technical alternatives or the failure to offer innovative products or configurations at competitive prices may cause existing and potential customers to purchase our competitors’ products or turn to alternative sensing technology.
If we are unable to devote adequate resources to develop products or cannot otherwise successfully develop products or system configurations that meet customer requirements on a timely basis or that remain competitive with technological alternatives, our products could lose market share, our revenue will decline, we may experience operating losses and our business and prospects will be adversely affected.
We may need to raise additional capital in the future in order to execute our business plan, which may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all.
In the future, we may require additional capital to respond to technological advancements, competitive dynamics or technologies, customer demands, business opportunities, challenges, acquisitions or unforeseen circumstances and we may determine to engage in equity or debt financings or enter into credit facilities for other reasons. In order to further business relationships with current or potential customers or partners, we may issue equity or equity-linked securities to such current or potential customers or partners. We may not be able to timely secure additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, or at all. If we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible debt or other equity-linked securities or if we issue equity or equity-linked securities to current or potential customers to further business relationships, our existing stockholders could experience significant dilution. Any debt financing obtained by us in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited.
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We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019. If we are unable to achieve and maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results in a timely manner, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and materially and adversely affect our business and operating results.
In connection with our financial statement close process for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, we identified material weaknesses in the design and operating effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. The material weaknesses we identified resulted from a lack of sufficient number of qualified personnel within our accounting and internal audit function who possessed an appropriate level of expertise to effectively perform functions relating to control environment, control activities, information and communication and monitoring. In addition, these material weaknesses contributed to material weaknesses in information technology controls and journal entry review. For a further discussion of these material weaknesses, see “Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting” in Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.
A material weakness is a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our financial statements would not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. These deficiencies could result in additional material misstatements to our consolidated financial statements that may not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
Our management is working on finalizing implementation of a remediation plan which includes hiring additional accounting and finance personnel with technical public company accounting and financial reporting experience, risk assessment, and design and implementation controls over financial reporting and information technology process. The material weaknesses will not be fully remediated until management can demonstrate the full effectiveness of controls over a sufficient period of time. Our management is monitoring the status, design and implementation of our remediation plan and will make changes management determines to be appropriate.
If not remediated, these material weaknesses could result in material misstatements to our annual or interim consolidated financial statements that might not be prevented or detected on a timely basis, or in delayed filing of required periodic reports. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an unqualified opinion as to the effectiveness of the internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of the Common Stock could be adversely affected, and we could become subject to litigation or investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.
Further, additional weaknesses in our internal controls may be discovered in the future. Any failure to further develop or maintain effective controls, or any difficulties encountered in our implementation or improvement, could adversely affect our operating results or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods.
Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.
As of December 31, 2021, we had $469.6 million of U.S. federal and $420.6 million of state net operating loss carryforwards available to reduce future taxable income. Of the $469.6 million in U.S. federal operating loss carryforwards, $426.9 million will be carried forward indefinitely for U.S. federal tax purposes and $42.7 million will expire between 2035 and 2037. The $420.6 million of our U.S. state net operating loss carryforwards will expire between 2035 and 2037. It is possible that we will not generate taxable income in time to use these net operating loss carryforwards before their expiration or at all. Under legislative changes made in December 2017, U.S. federal net operating losses incurred in 2018 and in future years may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such net operating losses is limited. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the newly enacted federal tax law. In addition, the federal and state net operating loss carryforwards and certain tax credits may be subject to significant limitations under Section 382 and Section 383 of the U.S. Tax Code, respectively, and similar provisions of state law. Under those sections of the U.S. Tax Code, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change attributes, such as research tax credits, to offset its post-change income or tax may be limited. In general, an “ownership change” will occur if there is a cumulative change in our ownership by “5-percent shareholders” that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws.
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We are highly dependent on the services of Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer.
We are highly dependent on Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Russell created our first lidar product and he remains deeply involved in all aspects of our business, including product development. The loss of Mr. Russell would adversely affect our business because his loss could make it more difficult to, among other things, compete with other market participants, manage our R&D activities and retain existing customers or cultivate new ones. Negative public perception of, or negative news related to, Mr. Russell may adversely affect our brand, relationship with customers or standing in the industry.
Our business depends substantially on the efforts of our executive officers and highly skilled personnel, and our operations may be severely disrupted if we lost their services.
Competition for highly-skilled personnel is often intense, especially in Orlando, Florida and the San Francisco Bay Area, where two of our offices are located, and we may incur significant costs to attract highly-skilled personnel. We may not be successful in attracting, integrating, or retaining qualified personnel to fulfill our current or future needs. We have, from time to time, experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived value of our equity or equity awards declines, it may adversely affect our ability to retain highly skilled employees. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be adversely affected.
Our business could be materially and adversely affected by the current global COVID-19 pandemic or other health epidemics and outbreaks.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as other possible health epidemics and outbreaks could result in a material adverse impact on our or our customers’ business operations including reduction or suspension of operations in the U.S. or certain parts of the world. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, such as the demand for our products, our ability to achieve or maintain profitability and our ability to raise additional capital in the future. Our corporate headquarters and R&D and manufacturing base are located in Florida, which has a high number of COVID-19 pandemic cases. Our engineering and manufacturing operations, among others, cannot all be conducted in a remote working structure and often require on-site access to materials and equipment. We have customers with international operations in varying industries. We also depend on suppliers and manufacturers worldwide. Depending upon the duration of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the associated business interruptions, our customers, suppliers, manufacturers and partners may suspend or delay their engagement with us, which could result in a material adverse effect on our financial condition. Our response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may prove to be inadequate and we may be unable to continue our operations in the manner we had prior to the outbreak, and may endure interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our product development and shipments, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. In addition, when the pandemic subsides, we cannot assure you as to the timing of any economic recovery, which could continue to have a material adverse effect on our target markets and our business.
Interruption or failure of our information technology and communications systems could impact our ability to effectively provide our services.
We plan to include in-vehicle services and functionality that utilize data connectivity to monitor performance and timely capture opportunities to enhance performance and functionality. The availability and effectiveness of our services depend on the continued operation of information technology and communications systems. Our systems will be vulnerable to damage or interruption from, among others, physical theft, fire, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, power loss, war, telecommunications failures, viruses, denial or degradation of service attacks, ransomware, social engineering schemes, insider theft or misuse or other attempts to harm our systems. We utilize reputable third-party service providers or vendors for all of our data other than our source code, and these providers could also be vulnerable to harms similar to those that could damage our systems, including sabotage and intentional acts of vandalism causing potential disruptions. Some of our systems will not be fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities. Any problems with our third-party cloud hosting providers could result in lengthy interruptions in our business. In addition, our in-vehicle services and functionality are highly technical and complex technology which may contain errors or vulnerabilities that could result in interruptions in our business or the failure of our systems.
We are subject to cybersecurity risks to operational systems, security systems, infrastructure, integrated software in our lidar solutions and customer data processed by us or third-party vendors or suppliers and any material failure, weakness, interruption, cyber event, incident or breach of security could prevent us from effectively operating our business.
We are at risk for interruptions, outages and breaches of: operational systems, including business, financial, accounting, product development, data processing or production processes, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; facility security systems, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; in-product technology owned by us or our third-party
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vendors or suppliers; the integrated software in our lidar solutions; or customer or driver data that we process or our third-party vendors or suppliers process on our behalf. Such cyber incidents could materially disrupt operational systems; result in loss of intellectual property, trade secrets or other proprietary or competitively sensitive information; compromise certain information of customers, employees, suppliers, drivers or others; jeopardize the security of our facilities; or affect the performance of in-product technology and the integrated software in our lidar solutions. A cyber incident could be caused by disasters, insiders (through inadvertence or with malicious intent) or malicious third parties (including nation-states or nation-state supported actors) using sophisticated, targeted methods to circumvent firewalls, encryption and other security defenses, including hacking, fraud, trickery or other forms of deception. The techniques used by cyber attackers change frequently and may be difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we maintain information technology measures designed to protect us against intellectual property theft, data breaches and other cyber incidents, such measures will require updates and improvements, and we cannot guarantee that such measures will be adequate to detect, prevent or mitigate cyber incidents. The implementation, maintenance, segregation and improvement of these systems requires significant management time, support and cost. Moreover, there are inherent risks associated with developing, improving, expanding and updating current systems, including the disruption of our data management, procurement, production execution, finance, supply chain and sales and service processes. These risks may affect our ability to manage our data and inventory, procure parts or supplies or produce, sell, deliver and service our solutions, adequately protect our intellectual property or achieve and maintain compliance with, or realize available benefits under, applicable laws, regulations and contracts. We cannot be sure that the systems upon which we rely, including those of our third-party vendors or suppliers, will be effectively implemented, maintained or expanded as planned. If we do not successfully implement, maintain or expand these systems as planned, our operations may be disrupted, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results could be impaired, and deficiencies may arise in our internal control over financial reporting, which may impact our ability to certify our financial results. Moreover, our proprietary information or intellectual property could be compromised or misappropriated and our reputation may be adversely affected. If these systems do not operate as we expect them to, we may be required to expend significant resources to make corrections or find alternative sources for performing these functions.
A significant cyber incident could impact production capability, harm our reputation, cause us to breach our contracts with other parties or subject us to regulatory actions or litigation, any of which could materially affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results. In addition, our insurance coverage for cyber-attacks may not be sufficient to cover all the losses we may experience as a result of a cyber incident.
Legal and Regulatory Risks Related to Our Business
We are subject to governmental export and import control laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Our products and solutions are subject to export control and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. U.S. export control laws and regulations and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to U.S. embargoed or sanctioned countries, governments and persons. In addition, complying with export control and sanctions regulations for a particular sale may be time-consuming and result in the delay or loss of sales opportunities. Exports of our products and technology must be made in compliance with these laws and regulations. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we and certain of our employees could be subject to substantial civil or criminal penalties, including the possible loss of export or import privileges, fines, which may be imposed on us and responsible employees or managers and, in extreme cases, the incarceration of responsible employees or managers.
Changes to trade policy, tariffs and import/export regulations may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Changes in global political, regulatory and economic conditions or in laws and policies governing foreign trade, manufacturing, development and investment in the territories or countries where we currently purchase our components, sell our products or conduct our business could adversely affect our business. The U.S. has recently instituted or proposed changes in trade policies that include the negotiation or termination of trade agreements, the imposition of higher tariffs on imports into the U.S., economic sanctions on individuals, corporations or countries, and other government regulations affecting trade between the U.S. and other countries where we conduct our business. A number of other nations have proposed or instituted similar measures directed at trade with the United States in response. As a result of these developments, there may be greater restrictions and economic disincentives on international trade that could adversely affect our business. For example, such changes could adversely affect the automotive market, our ability to access key components or raw materials needed to manufacture our products (including, but not limited to, rare-earth metals), our ability to sell our products to customers outside of the U.S. and the demand for our products. It may be time-consuming and expensive for us to alter our business operations to adapt to or comply with any such changes, and any failure to do so could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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We have in the past and may become involved in legal and regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes, which could have an adverse effect on our profitability and consolidated financial position.
We may be, from time to time, involved in litigation, regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes that may be significant. These matters may include, without limitation, disputes with our suppliers and customers, intellectual property claims, stockholder litigation, government investigations, class action lawsuits, personal injury claims, environmental issues, customs and value-added tax disputes and employment and tax issues. In addition, we have in the past and could face in the future a variety of labor and employment claims against us, which could include but is not limited to general discrimination, wage and hour, privacy, ERISA or disability claims. In such matters, government agencies or private parties may seek to recover from us very large, indeterminate amounts in penalties or monetary damages (including, in some cases, treble or punitive damages) or seek to limit our operations in some way. These types of lawsuits could require significant management time and attention or could involve substantial legal liability, adverse regulatory outcomes, and/or substantial expenses to defend. Often these cases raise complex factual and legal issues and create risks and uncertainties. No assurances can be given that any proceedings and claims will not have a material adverse impact on our operating results and consolidated financial position or that our established reserves or our available insurance will mitigate this impact.
We are subject to, and must remain in compliance with, numerous laws and governmental regulations concerning the manufacturing, use, distribution and sale of our products. Some of our customers also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to these matters.
We manufacture and sell products that contain electronic components, and such components may contain materials that are subject to government regulation in both the locations where we manufacture and assemble our products, as well as the locations where we sell our products. For example, certain regulations limit the use of lead in electronic components. Since we operate on a global basis, this is a complex process which requires continual monitoring of regulations and an ongoing compliance process to ensure that we and our suppliers are in compliance with existing regulations in each market where we operate. If there is an unanticipated new regulation that significantly impacts our use and sourcing of various components or requires more expensive components, that regulation could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our products are used for autonomous driving and ADAS applications, which are subject to complicated regulatory schemes that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. These are rapidly evolving areas where new regulations could impose limitations on the use of lidar generally or our products specifically. If we fail to adhere to these new regulations or fail to continually monitor the updates, we may be subject to litigation, loss of customers or negative publicity and our business, results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected.
We are subject to various environmental laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us and cause delays in building our production facilities.
Concerns over environmental pollution and climate change have produced significant legislative and regulatory efforts on a global basis, and we believe this will continue both in scope and in the number of countries participating. In addition, as climate change issues become more prevalent, foreign, federal, state and local governments and our customers have been responding to these issues. The increased focus on environmental sustainability may result in new regulations and customer requirements, or changes in current regulations and customer requirements, which could materially adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition. If we are unable to effectively manage real or perceived issues, including concerns about environmental impacts or similar matters, sentiments toward us or our products could be negatively impacted, and our business, results of operations or financial condition could suffer.
Our operations are and will be subject to international, federal, state and local environmental laws and regulations, and such laws and regulations could directly increase the cost of energy, which may have an effect on the way we manufacture products or utilize energy to produce our products. In addition, any new regulations or laws in the environmental area might increase the cost of raw materials or key components we use in our products. Environmental regulations require us to reduce product energy usage, monitor and exclude an expanding list of restricted substances and to participate in required recovery and recycling of our products. Environmental and health and safety laws and regulations can be complex, and we have limited experience complying with them. Capital and operating expenses needed to comply with environmental laws and regulations can be significant, and violations may result in substantial fines and penalties, third-party damages, suspension of production or a cessation of our operations. Contamination at properties we operate, we formerly operated or to which hazardous substances were sent by us, may result in liability for us under environmental laws and regulations, including, but not limited to, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which can impose liability for the full amount of remediation-related costs without regard to fault, for the investigation and cleanup of contaminated soil and ground water, for building contamination and impacts to human health and for damages to natural resources. The costs of complying with environmental laws and regulations and any claims concerning noncompliance, or liability with respect to contamination in the future, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or operating results. We may face unexpected delays in
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obtaining the required permits and approvals in connection with our planned production facilities that could require significant time and financial resources and delay our ability to operate these facilities, which would adversely impact our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
Our business may be adversely affected by changes in automotive and laser regulations or concerns that drive further regulation of the automobile and laser market.
Government product safety regulations are an important factor for our business. Historically, these regulations have imposed ever-more stringent safety regulations for vehicles and laser products. These safety regulations often require, or customers demand that, vehicles have more safety features per vehicle and more advanced safety products.
While we believe increasing automotive and laser safety standards will present a market opportunity for our products, government safety regulations are subject to change based on a number of factors that are not within our control, including new scientific or technological data, adverse publicity regarding the industry recalls and safety risks of autonomous driving and ADAS, accidents involving our products, domestic and foreign political developments or considerations, and litigation relating to our products and our competitors’ products. Changes in government regulations, especially in the autonomous driving and ADAS industries, could adversely affect our business. If government priorities shift and we are unable to adapt to changing regulations, our business may be materially and adversely affected.
Federal and local regulators impose more stringent compliance and reporting requirements in response to product recalls and safety issues in the automotive and laser industry. As cars that carry our sensors go into production, the obligations of complying with safety regulations and reporting requirements could increase and it could require increased resources and adversely affect our business.
Autonomous and ADAS features may be delayed in adoption by OEMs, and our business impacted, as additional emissions and safety requirements are imposed on vehicle manufacturers.
Vehicle regulators globally continue to consider new and enhanced emissions requirements, including electrification, to meet environmental and economic needs as well as pursue new safety standards to address emerging traffic risks. To control new vehicle prices, among other concerns, OEMs may need to dedicate technology and cost additions to new vehicle designs to meet these emissions and safety requirements and postpone the consumer cost pressures of new autonomous and ADAS features.
Our business may be adversely affected if we fail to comply with the regulatory requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic or the Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”).
As a lidar technology company, we are subject to the Electronic Product Radiation Control Provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. These requirements are enforced by the FDA. Electronic product radiation includes laser technology. Regulations governing these products are intended to protect the public from hazardous or unnecessary exposure. Manufacturers are required to certify in product labeling and reports to the FDA that their products comply with applicable performance standards as well as maintain manufacturing, testing, and distribution records for their products. Failure to comply with these requirements could result in enforcement action by the FDA, which could require us to cease distribution of our products, recall or remediate products already distributed to customers, or subject us to FDA enforcement.
Failures, or perceived failures, to comply with privacy, data protection, and information security requirements in the variety of jurisdictions in which we operate may adversely impact our business, and such legal requirements are evolving, uncertain and may require improvements in, or changes to, our policies and operations.
Our current and potential future operations and sales subject us to laws and regulations addressing privacy and the collection, use, storage, disclosure, transfer and protection of a variety of types of data. For example, the European Commission has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation and California recently enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, both of which provide for potentially material penalties for non-compliance. These regimes may, among other things, impose data security requirements, disclosure requirements, and restrictions on data collection, uses, and sharing that may impact our operations and the development of our business. While, generally, we do not have access to, collect, store, process, or share information collected by our solutions unless our customers choose to proactively provide such information to us, our products may evolve both to address potential customer requirements or to add new features and functionality. Therefore, the full impact of these privacy regimes on our business is rapidly evolving across jurisdictions and remains uncertain at this time.
We may also be affected by cyber-attacks and other means of gaining unauthorized access to our products, systems, and data. For instance, cyber criminals or insiders may target us or third parties with which we have business relationships to obtain data, or in a manner that disrupts our operations or compromises our products or the systems into which our products are integrated.
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We are assessing the continually evolving privacy and data security regimes and measures we believe are appropriate in response. Since these data security regimes are evolving, uncertain and complex, especially for a global business like ours, we may need to update or enhance our compliance measures as our products, markets and customer demands further develop, and these updates or enhancements may require implementation costs. In addition, we may not be able to monitor and react to all developments in a timely manner. The compliance measures we do adopt may prove ineffective. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with current and future regulatory or customer-driven privacy, data protection, and information security requirements, or to prevent or mitigate security breaches, cyber-attacks, or improper access to, use of, or disclosure of data, or any security issues or cyber-attacks affecting us, could result in significant liability, costs (including the costs of mitigation and recovery), and a material loss of revenue resulting from the adverse impact on our reputation and brand, loss of proprietary information and data, disruption to our business and relationships, and diminished ability to retain or attract customers and business partners. Such events may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and could cause customers and business partners to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business.
Regulations related to conflict minerals may cause us to incur additional expenses and could limit the supply and increase the costs of certain metals used in the manufacturing of our products.
We are subject to the requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, or the Dodd-Frank Act, that will require us to determine, disclose and report whether our products contain conflict minerals. The implementation of these requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability and pricing of the materials used in the manufacture of components used in our products. In addition, we will incur additional costs to comply with the disclosure requirements, including costs related to conducting diligence procedures to determine the sources of conflict minerals that may be used in or necessary to the production of our products and, if applicable, potential changes to products, processes or sources of supply as a consequence of such verification activities. It is also possible that our reputation may be adversely affected if we determine that certain of our products contain minerals not determined to be conflict-free or if we are unable to alter our products, processes or sources of supply to avoid use of such materials.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Despite the actions we are taking to defend and protect our intellectual property, we may not be able to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights or prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our solutions. Our efforts to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights and prevent third parties from violating our rights may be costly.
The success of our products and our business depends in part on our ability to obtain patents and other intellectual property rights and maintain adequate legal protection for our products in the United States and other international jurisdictions. We rely on a combination of patent, service mark, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protection.
We cannot be assured that any patents will be issued with respect to our currently pending patent applications or that any trademarks will be registered with respect to our currently pending applications in a manner that gives us adequate defensive protection or competitive advantages, if at all, or that any patents issued to us or any trademarks registered by us will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. We have filed for patents and trademarks in the United States and in certain international jurisdictions, but such protections may not be available in all countries in which we operate or in which we seek to enforce our intellectual property rights, or may be difficult to enforce in practice. Our currently-issued patents and trademarks and any patents and trademarks that may be issued or registered, as applicable, in the future with respect to pending or future applications may not provide sufficiently broad protection or may not prove to be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers. We cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent unauthorized use of our technology or the reverse engineering of our technology. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies that are competitive to us or infringe our intellectual property.
Protecting against the unauthorized use of our intellectual property, products and other proprietary rights is expensive and difficult, particularly internationally. We believe that our patents are foundational in the area of lidar products and intends to enforce the intellectual property portfolio we have built over the years. Unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or reverse engineer our lidar technology or certain aspects of our solutions that we consider proprietary. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our solutions, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or to block the importation of infringing products into the United States.
Any such litigation, whether initiated by us or a third party, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Even if we obtain
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favorable outcomes in litigation, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies, especially in the context of unauthorized parties copying or reverse engineering our solutions.
Further, many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to defending intellectual property infringement claims and to enforcing their intellectual property rights than we have. Attempts to enforce our rights against third parties could also provoke these third parties to assert their own intellectual property or other rights against us or result in a holding that invalidates or narrows the scope of our rights, in whole or in part. Effective patent, trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available in every country in which our products are available and competitors based in other countries may sell infringing products in one or more markets. Failure to adequately protect our intellectual property rights could result in our competitors offering similar products, potentially resulting in the loss of some of our competitive advantage and a decrease in our revenue, which would adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.
Third-party claims that we are infringing intellectual property, whether successful or not, could subject us to costly and time-consuming litigation or expensive licenses, and our business could be adversely affected.
Although we hold key patents related to our products, a number of companies, both within and outside of the lidar industry, hold other patents covering aspects of lidar products. In addition to these patents, participants in this industry typically also protect their technology, especially embedded software, through copyrights and trade secrets. As a result, there is frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights. We have received, and in the future may receive, inquiries from other intellectual property holders and may become subject to claims that we infringe their intellectual property rights, particularly as we expand our presence in the market, expand to new use cases and face increasing competition. In addition, parties may claim that the names and branding of our products infringe their trademark rights in certain countries or territories. If such a claim were to prevail, we may have to change the names and branding of our products in the affected territories and we could incur other costs.
We currently have a number of agreements in effect pursuant to which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our customers, suppliers, and channel partners and other partners from damages and costs which may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents or other intellectual property rights. The scope of these indemnity obligations varies, but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. Our insurance may not cover all intellectual property infringement claims. A claim that our products infringe a third party’s intellectual property rights, even if untrue, could adversely affect our relationships with our customers, may deter future customers from purchasing our products and could expose us to costly litigation and settlement expenses. Even if we are not a party to any litigation between a customer and a third party relating to infringement by our products, an adverse outcome in any such litigation could make it more difficult for us to defend our products against intellectual property infringement claims in any subsequent litigation in which we are a named party. Any of these results could adversely affect our brand and operating results.
Our defense of intellectual property rights claims brought against us or our customers, suppliers and channel partners, with or without merit, could be time-consuming, expensive to litigate or settle, divert management resources and attention and force us to acquire intellectual property rights and licenses, which may involve substantial royalty or other payments and may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. Further, a party making such a claim, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages or obtain an injunction. An adverse determination also could invalidate our intellectual property rights and adversely affect our ability to offer our products to our customers and may require that we procure or develop substitute products that do not infringe, which could require significant effort and expense. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.
Our intellectual property applications for registration may not issue or be registered, which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours.
We cannot be certain that we are the first inventor of the subject matter to which we have filed a particular patent application, or if we are the first party to file such a patent application. If another party has filed a patent application to the same subject matter as we have, we may not be entitled to the protection sought by the patent application. We also cannot be certain whether the claims included in a patent application will ultimately be allowed in the applicable issued patent. Further, the scope of protection of issued patent claims is often difficult to determine. As a result, we cannot be certain that the patent applications that we file will issue, or that our issued patents will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. In addition, our competitors may design around our issued patents, which may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.
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In addition to patented technology, we rely on our unpatented proprietary technology, trade secrets, processes and know-how.
We rely on proprietary information (such as trade secrets, know-how and confidential information) to protect intellectual property that may not be patentable or subject to copyright, trademark, trade dress or service mark protection, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. We generally seek to protect this proprietary information by entering into confidentiality agreements, or consulting services or employment agreements that contain non-disclosure and non-use provisions with our employees, consultants, contractors and third parties. However, we may fail to enter into the necessary agreements, and even if entered into, these agreements may be breached or may otherwise fail to prevent disclosure, third-party infringement or misappropriation of our proprietary information, may be limited as to their term and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure or use of proprietary information. We have limited control over the protection of trade secrets used by our current or future manufacturing partners and suppliers and could lose future trade secret protection if any unauthorized disclosure of such information occurs. In addition, our proprietary information may otherwise become known or be independently developed by our competitors or other third parties. To the extent that our employees, consultants, contractors, advisors and other third parties use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain protection for our proprietary information could adversely affect our competitive business position. Furthermore, laws regarding trade secret rights in certain markets where we operate may afford little or no protection to our trade secrets.
We also rely on physical and electronic security measures to protect our proprietary information, but we cannot provide assurance that these security measures will not be breached or provide adequate protection for our property. There is a risk that third parties may obtain and improperly utilize our proprietary information to our competitive disadvantage. We may not be able to detect or prevent the unauthorized use of such information or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce our intellectual property rights.
We may be subject to damages resulting from claims that we or our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of our employees’ former employers.
We may be subject to claims that we or our employees have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of an employee’s former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. A loss of key personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to commercialize our products, which could severely harm our business. Even if we are successful in defending against these claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and demand on management resources.
Risks Related to Being a Public Company
We continue to incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management continues to devote substantial time to new public company compliance initiatives.
As a public company, we continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as rules adopted, and to be adopted, by the SEC and Nasdaq. Our management and other personnel continue to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, we expect these rules and regulations to substantially increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some activities more time-consuming and costly. The increased costs will increase our net loss. For example, our director and officer liability insurance remained expensive and market trends for such insurance are increasing, and we may be forced to accept reduced policy limits or incur substantially higher costs to maintain the same or similar coverage. We cannot predict or estimate the amount or timing of additional costs we may incur to respond to these requirements. The impact of these requirements could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board, our Board committees or as executive officers.
Our management team has limited experience managing a public company.
Most of the members of our management team have limited experience managing a publicly traded company or have been recently hired. Our management team may not successfully or efficiently manage their new roles and responsibilities. Our transition to being a public company subjects us to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under the federal securities laws and the continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. These new obligations and constituents will require significant attention from our senior management and could divert their attention away from the day-to-day management of our business, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results.
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Risks Related to Ownership of Our Shares
Our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation provides, subject to limited exceptions, that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (the “Chancery Court”) will be the sole and exclusive forum for certain stockholder litigation matters, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a chosen judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, employees or stockholders.
Our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation requires, to the fullest extent permitted by law, that derivative actions brought in our name, actions against directors, officers and employees for breach of fiduciary duty and other similar actions may be brought in the Chancery Court or, if that court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, another federal or state court situated in the State of Delaware. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our capital stock shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to the forum provisions in our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation. In addition, our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation and Amended and Restated Bylaws provide that the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action under the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.
In March 2020, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a decision in Salzburg et al. v. Sciabacucchi, which found that an exclusive forum provision providing for claims under the Securities Act to be brought in federal court is facially valid under Delaware law. We intend to enforce this forum provision, but we do not know whether courts in other jurisdictions will agree with this decision or enforce it.
This choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum of its choosing for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Our charter documents and Delaware law could prevent a takeover that stockholders consider favorable and could also reduce the market price of our stock.
Our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation and Amended and Restated Bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control. These provisions could also make it more difficult for stockholders to elect directors and take other corporate actions. These provisions include:
providing for a classified board of directors with staggered, three-year terms;
authorizing our Board to issue Preferred Stock with voting or other rights or preferences that could discourage a takeover attempt or delay changes in control;
prohibiting cumulative voting in the election of directors;
providing that vacancies on our Board may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum;
prohibiting the adoption, amendment or repeal of the Amended and Restated Bylaws or the repeal of the provisions of our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors without the required approval of at least two-thirds of the shares entitled to vote at an election of directors;
prohibiting stockholder action by written consent;
limiting the persons who may call special meetings of stockholders; and
requiring advance notification of stockholder nominations and proposals.
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our Board, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”). These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a certain period of time without the consent of our Board.
These and other provisions in our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation and our Amended and Restated Bylaws and under Delaware law could discourage potential takeover attempts, reduce the price investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of Class A common stock and result in the market price of Class A common stock being lower than it would be without these provisions.
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Claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.
Our Second Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation and Amended and Restated Bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, in each case to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law.
In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the DGCL, the Amended and Restated Bylaws and the indemnification agreements that we have entered into with our directors and officers provide that:
we will indemnify our directors and officers for serving us in those capacities or for serving other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that a corporation may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to the best interests of the registrant and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person’s conduct was unlawful;
we may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law;
we will be required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if we are ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification;
we will not be obligated pursuant to our Amended and Restated Bylaws to indemnify a person with respect to proceedings initiated by that person against us or our other indemnitees, except with respect to proceedings authorized by our Board or brought to enforce a right to indemnification;
the rights conferred in the Amended and Restated Bylaws are not exclusive, and we are authorized to enter into indemnification agreements with our directors, officers, employees and agents and to obtain insurance to indemnify such persons; and
we may not retroactively amend our Amended and Restated Bylaw provisions to reduce our indemnification obligations to directors, officers, employees and agents.
The dual class structure of our Common Stock has the effect of concentrating voting control with Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer. This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters, including the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
Shares of our Class B common stock, $0.0001 par value per share (“Class B common stock”), have 10 votes per share, while shares of Class A common stock have one vote per share. Austin Russell, our Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, holds all of the issued and outstanding shares of Class B common stock. Accordingly, Mr. Russell held approximately 79.5% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of December 31, 2021 and will be able to control matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets or other major corporate transactions. Mr. Russell may have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and which may be adverse to your interests. This concentrated control may have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change in control of us, could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their capital stock as part of a sale of us, and might ultimately affect the market price of shares of Class A common stock.
In connection with the execution of the Merger Agreement, Austin Russell entered into a voting agreement, dated as of August 24, 2020, with Gores (the “Voting Agreement”). Under the Voting Agreement, Mr. Russell agreed that, following the consummation of the Business Combination, solely if he is involuntarily terminated from his position as the Chief Executive Officer of the Company and as a result of his conviction of, or pleading guilty or nolo contendere to, a felony that has a material negative impact on the Company, at any meeting of the stockholders of the Company at which directors are to be elected following the consummation of the Business Combination, Mr. Russell, or any of his permitted successors or assigns, will not vote more than 10% of the Class B common stock he or they beneficially own in any director election.
We are a controlled company within the meaning of The Nasdaq Stock Market listing standards, and, as a result, qualify for exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements that provide protection to stockholders of other companies. To the extent we utilize any of these exemptions, you will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to such requirements. We do not currently intend to rely on the exemptions afforded to controlled companies at this time.
So long as more than 50% of the voting power for the election of our directors is held by an individual, a group or another company, we will qualify as a “controlled company” under The Nasdaq Stock Market listing requirements. Austin Russell controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock. As a result, we are a “controlled company”
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under the Nasdaq Stock Market rules. As a controlled company, we are exempt from certain Nasdaq corporate governance requirements, including those that would otherwise require our Board to have a majority of independent directors and require that we establish a compensation committee comprised entirely of independent directors, or otherwise ensure that the compensation of our executive officers and nominees for directors are determined or recommended to our Board by the independent members of our Board. While we do not currently intend to rely on any of these exemptions, we will be entitled to do so for as long as we are considered a “controlled company,” and to the extent we rely on one or more of these exemptions, holders of our capital stock will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of Nasdaq’s corporate governance requirements.
Our dual class structure may depress the trading price of the Class A common stock.
We cannot predict whether our dual class structure will result in a lower or more volatile market price of the Class A common stock or in adverse publicity or other adverse consequences. For example, certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multiple-class share structures in certain of their indexes. S&P Dow Jones and FTSE Russell have announced changes to their eligibility criteria for inclusion of shares of public companies on certain indices, including the S&P 500, pursuant to which companies with multiple classes of shares of common stock are excluded. In addition, several stockholder advisory firms have announced their opposition to the use of multiple class structures. As a result, the dual class structure of our Common Stock may cause stockholder advisory firms to publish negative commentary about our corporate governance practices or otherwise seek to cause us to change our capital structure. Any such exclusion from indices or any actions or publications by stockholder advisory firms critical of our corporate governance practices or capital structure could adversely affect the value and trading market of the Class A common stock.
Sales of shares of Class A common stock in the public market or the perception that these sales or conversions might occur may depress the market price of Class A common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. It is difficult to predict the effect that such sales or conversions may have on the prevailing market price of the Class A common stock.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We expect to retain future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. Any future determination to pay dividends on our capital stock will be at the discretion of our Board. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of our Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.
The market price and trading volume of Class A common stock may be volatile and could decline significantly.
The stock markets, including Nasdaq on which we list our shares of Class A common stock, have from time to time experienced significant price and volume fluctuations. Even if an active, liquid and orderly trading market develops and is sustained for the Class A common stock, the market price of Class A common stock may be volatile and could decline significantly. In addition, the trading volume in Class A common stock may fluctuate and cause significant price variations to occur. If the market price of Class A common stock declines significantly, you may be unable to resell your shares at an attractive price (or at all). We cannot assure you that the market price of Class A common stock will not fluctuate widely or decline significantly in the future in response to a number of factors, including, among others, the following:
the realization of any of the risk factors presented in this Annual Report;
actual or anticipated differences in our estimates, or in the estimates of analysts, for our revenues, Adjusted EBITDA, results of operations, level of indebtedness, liquidity or financial condition;
additions and departures of key personnel;
failure to comply with the requirements of Nasdaq, Sarbanes-Oxley Act or other laws or regulations;
future issuances, sales, resales or repurchases or anticipated issuances, sales, resales or repurchases, of our securities;
publication of research reports about us;
the performance and market valuations of other similar companies;
commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving us;
broad disruptions in the financial markets, including sudden disruptions in the credit markets;
speculation in the press or investment community;
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actual, potential or perceived control, accounting or reporting problems;
changes in accounting principles, policies and guidelines; and
other events or factors, including those resulting from infectious diseases, health epidemics and pandemics (including the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency), natural disasters, war, acts of terrorism or responses to these events.
In the past, securities class-action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of their shares. This type of litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources, which could have a material adverse effect on us.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish or cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our Class A common stock adversely, then the price and trading volume of our Class A common stock could decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts may publish about us, our business, our market, or our competitors. Securities and industry analysts do not currently, and may never, publish research on us. If no securities or industry analysts commence coverage of us, our stock price and trading volume would likely be negatively impacted. If any of the analysts who may cover us change their recommendation regarding our stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our Class A common stock would likely decline. If any analyst who may cover us were to cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
Future issuances of debt securities and equity securities, including from the exercise of warrants for our Class A common stock, may adversely affect us, including the market price of the Class A common stock and may be dilutive to existing stockholders.
In the future, we may incur debt or issue equity ranking senior to the Class A common stock. Those securities will generally have priority upon liquidation. Such securities also may be governed by an indenture or other instrument containing covenants restricting its operating flexibility. Additionally, any convertible or exchangeable securities that we issue in the future may have rights, preferences and privileges more favorable than those of the Class A common stock. Because our decision to issue debt or equity in the future will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, nature or success of our future capital raising efforts. As a result, future capital raising efforts may reduce the market price of Class A common stock and be dilutive to existing stockholders.
In addition, as of December 31, 2021, we had warrants to purchase an aggregate of 7.2 million shares of our Class A common stock outstanding. To the extent remaining warrants are exercised, additional shares of Class A common stock will be issued, which will result in dilution to the then-existing holders of Class A common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market. Sales of substantial numbers of such shares in the public market or the fact that such warrants may be exercised could adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.
Our failure to meet the continued listing requirements of Nasdaq could result in a delisting of our securities.
If we fail to satisfy the continued listing requirements of Nasdaq such as the corporate governance requirements or the minimum closing bid price requirement, Nasdaq may take steps to delist our securities. Such a delisting would likely have a negative effect on the price of the securities and would impair your ability to sell or purchase the securities when you wish to do so. In the event of a delisting, we can provide no assurance that any action taken by us to restore compliance with listing requirements would allow our securities to become listed again, stabilize the market price or improve the liquidity of our securities, prevent our securities from dropping below the Nasdaq minimum bid price requirement or prevent future non-compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements. Additionally, if our securities are not listed on, or become delisted from, Nasdaq for any reason, and are quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board, an inter-dealer automated quotation system for equity securities that is not a national securities exchange, the liquidity and price of our securities may be more limited than if we were quoted or listed on Nasdaq or another national securities exchange. You may be unable to sell your securities unless a market can be established or sustained.
Risks Related to Our Indebtedness
Our indebtedness and liabilities could limit the cash flow available for our operations, expose us to risks that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and impair our ability to satisfy our obligations under the notes.
As of December 31, 2021, our total consolidated indebtedness was $609.0 million, representing the 2026 Convertible Senior Notes, net of unamortized debt discount and issuance costs, finance leases and certain secured equipment loans. We may
34


also incur additional indebtedness to meet future financing needs. Our indebtedness could have significant negative consequences for our security holders and our business, results of operations and financial condition by, among other things:
increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic and industry conditions;
limiting our ability to obtain additional financing;
requiring the dedication of a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to service our indebtedness, which will reduce the amount of cash available for other purposes;
limiting our flexibility to plan for, or react to, changes in our business;
diluting the interests of our existing stockholders as a result of issuing shares of our Class A common stock upon conversion of the notes; and
placing us at a possible competitive disadvantage with competitors that are less leveraged than us or have better access to capital.
Our business may not generate sufficient funds, and we may otherwise be unable to maintain sufficient cash reserves, to pay amounts due under our indebtedness, including the notes, and our cash needs may increase in the future. In addition, any future indebtedness that we may incur may contain, financial and other restrictive covenants that limit our ability to operate our business, raise capital or make payments under our other indebtedness. If we fail to comply with these covenants or to make payments under our indebtedness when due, then we would be in default under that indebtedness, which could, in turn, result in that and our other indebtedness becoming immediately payable in full.
We may be unable to raise the funds necessary to repurchase the notes for cash following a fundamental change, or to pay any cash amounts due upon conversion, and our other indebtedness may limit our ability to repurchase the notes or pay cash upon their conversion.
Noteholders may, subject to a limited exception described in this offering memorandum, require us to repurchase their notes following a fundamental change at a cash repurchase price generally equal to the principal amount of the notes to be repurchased, plus accrued and unpaid interest, if any. See Exhibit 4.1 Indenture, dated as of December 17, 2021, between Luminar Technologies, Inc. and U.S. Bank National Association, as trustee in the Form 8-K filed with the Securities Exchange Commission on December 17, 2021. In addition, upon conversion, we will satisfy part or all of our conversion obligation in cash unless we elect to settle conversions solely in shares of our Class A common stock. We may not have enough available cash or be able to obtain financing at the time we are required to repurchase the notes or pay any cash amounts due upon conversion. In addition, applicable law, regulatory authorities and the agreements governing any future indebtedness may restrict our ability to repurchase the notes or pay any cash amounts due upon conversion. Our failure to repurchase notes or to pay any cash amounts due upon conversion when required will constitute a default under the indenture. A default under the indenture or the fundamental change itself could also lead to a default under agreements governing our other indebtedness, which may result in that other indebtedness becoming immediately payable in full. We may not have sufficient funds to satisfy all amounts due under the other indebtedness and the notes.
The accounting method for the notes could adversely affect our reported financial condition and results.
In August 2020, the Financial Accounting Standards Board published an Accounting Standards Update, which we refer to as ASU 2020-06, to reduce the number of accounting models for convertible debt instruments. We early adopted ASU 2020-06, effective January 1, 2021. When effective, we expect the elimination of the separate accounting described above to reduce the interest expense that we expect to recognize for the notes for accounting purposes. Under ASU 2020-06, the embedded conversion features are no longer separated from the host contract for convertible instruments with conversion features that are not required to be accounted for as derivatives under Topic 815, or that do not result in substantial premiums accounted for as paid-in capital. Consequently, the notes are accounted for as a single liability measured at amortized cost. Further, ASU 2020-06 eliminates the use of the treasury stock method for convertible instruments that can be settled in whole or in part with equity, and instead requires application of the “if-converted” method. Under that method, diluted earnings per share would generally be calculated assuming that all the notes were converted solely into shares of Class A common stock at the beginning of the reporting period, unless the result would be anti-dilutive. The application of the if-converted method may reduce our reported diluted earnings per share.
Furthermore, if any of the conditions to the convertibility of the notes is satisfied, then we may be required under applicable accounting standards to reclassify the liability carrying value of the notes as a current, rather than a long-term, liability. This reclassification could be required even if no noteholders convert their notes and could materially reduce our reported working capital.
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The capped call transactions may affect the value of the notes and our Class A common stock.
In connection with the Senior Convertible Notes, we entered into privately negotiated capped call transactions with the option counterparties. The capped call transactions are expected generally to reduce the potential dilution to our Class A common stock upon any conversion of the notes and/or offset any potential cash payments we are required to make in excess of the principal amount of converted notes, as the case may be, with such reduction and/or offset subject to a cap.
We have been advised that, in connection with establishing their initial hedges of the capped call transactions, the option counterparties or their respective affiliates entered into various derivative transactions with respect to our Class A common stock and/or purchased shares of our Class A common stock.
In addition, the option counterparties and/or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivatives with respect to our Class A common stock and/or purchasing or selling our Class A common stock or other securities of ours in secondary market transactions following the pricing of the notes and from time to time prior to the maturity of the notes (and are likely to do so following any conversion of the notes, any repurchase of the notes by us on any fundamental change repurchase date, any redemption date or any other date on which the notes are retired by us, in each case if we exercise the relevant election to terminate the corresponding portion of the capped call transactions). This activity could also cause or avoid an increase or a decrease in the market price of our Class A common stock.
We are subject to counterparty risk with respect to the capped call transactions and, if effected, the ASR program, and the capped call transactions and ASR program may not operate as planned.
The option counterparties are, and the ASR counterparty will be, financial institutions, and we will be subject to the risk that they might default under the capped call transactions or, if effected, the ASR program. Our exposure to the credit risk of the option counterparties or ASR counterparty will not be secured by any collateral. Global economic conditions have from time to time resulted in the actual or perceived failure or financial difficulties of many financial institutions, including the bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and its various affiliates. If an option counterparty or ASR counterparty becomes subject to insolvency proceedings, we will become an unsecured creditor in those proceedings with a claim equal to our exposure at that time under our transactions with that option counterparty or the ASR counterparty. Our exposure will depend on many factors, but, generally, the increase in our exposure will be correlated with increases in the market price or the volatility of our Class A common stock. In addition, upon a default by an option counterparty or the ASR counterparty, we may suffer more dilution than we currently anticipate with respect to our Class A common stock. We can provide no assurances as to the financial stability or viability of any option counterparty or ASR counterparty.
In addition, the capped call transactions are complex, and they may not operate as planned. For example, the terms of the capped call transactions may be subject to adjustment, modification or, in some cases, renegotiation if certain corporate or other transactions occur. Accordingly, these transactions may not operate as we intend if we are required to adjust their terms as a result of transactions in the future or upon unanticipated developments that may adversely affect the functioning of the capped call transactions.
Our repurchases of shares of our Class A common stock, including pursuant to an ASR program, may affect the value of the notes and our Class A common stock.
In addition to the payment of the premium for the capped call transactions, we intend to use up to $312.5 million of the net proceeds of the offering of our Senior Convertible Notes to repurchase shares of our Class A common stock pursuant to our previously announced share repurchase program. Such repurchases are expected to be effected by (i) repurchases from purchasers of the notes in privately negotiated transactions through one of the initial purchasers or its affiliate, as our agent, concurrently with or following the pricing of the notes offering; and (ii) additional repurchases in the open market. Such repurchases may also include the use of an ASR program with the ASR counterparty, which may be one of the initial purchasers and/or an affiliate thereof, following the closing of this offering.
We expect that the ASR counterparty will purchase shares of our Class A common stock in secondary market transactions, and may execute other transactions in our Class A common stock, or in derivative transactions relating to our Class A common stock, beginning on the first trading day during the term of the ASR program. These activities and our other repurchases of shares of our Class A common stock may cause an increase or avoid a decrease in the market price of our Class A common stock or the notes, and, to the extent the activity occurs during any observation period related to a conversion of notes, it could affect the amount and value of the consideration that holders will receive upon conversion of the notes.

36


General Risks
Unanticipated changes in effective tax rates or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income or other tax returns could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
We will be subject to income taxes in the United States and other jurisdictions, and our tax liabilities will be subject to the allocation of expenses in differing jurisdictions. Our future effective tax rates could be subject to volatility or adversely affected by a number of factors, including:
changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities;
expected timing and amount of the release of any tax valuation allowances;
tax effects of stock-based compensation;
costs related to intercompany restructurings;
changes in tax laws, regulations or interpretations thereof; or
lower than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have lower statutory tax rates and higher than anticipated future earnings in jurisdictions where we have higher statutory tax rates.
In addition, we may be subject to audits of our income, sales and other transaction taxes by taxing authorities. Outcomes from these audits could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.
Changes in laws, regulations or rules, or a failure to comply with any laws, regulations or rules, may adversely affect our business, investments and results of operations.
We are subject to laws, regulations and rules enacted by national, regional and local governments and Nasdaq. In particular, we are required to comply with certain SEC, Nasdaq and other legal or regulatory requirements. Compliance with, and monitoring of, applicable laws, regulations and rules may be difficult, time consuming and costly. Those laws, regulations or rules and their interpretation and application may also change from time to time and those changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, investments and results of operations. In addition, a failure to comply with applicable laws, regulations or rules, as interpreted and applied, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
We are subject to U.S. and foreign anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws and regulations. We can face criminal liability and other serious consequences for violations, which can harm our business.
We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and possibly other anti-bribery and anti-money laundering laws in countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, contractors and other collaborators from authorizing, promising, offering or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or anything else of value to recipients in the public or private sector. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, agents, contractors and other collaborators, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities. Any violations of the laws and regulations described above may result in substantial civil and criminal fines and penalties, imprisonment, the loss of export or import privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm and other consequences.
Changes in tax laws or exposure to additional income tax liabilities could affect our future profitability.
Factors that could materially affect our future effective tax rates include but are not limited to:
changes in tax laws or the regulatory environment;
changes in accounting and tax standards or practices;
changes in the composition of operating income by tax jurisdiction; and
our operating results before taxes.
Because we do not have a long history of operating at our present scale and we have significant expansion plans, our effective tax rate may fluctuate in the future. Future effective tax rates could be affected by operating losses in jurisdictions where no tax benefit can be recorded under GAAP, changes in the composition of earnings in countries with differing tax rates, changes in deferred tax assets and liabilities, or changes in tax laws.
On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Tax Act”) was signed into law making significant changes to the U.S. Tax Code. In particular, sweeping changes were made to the U.S. taxation of foreign operations. Changes
37


include, but are not limited to, a reduction to the corporate income tax rate, limiting interest deductions, adopting elements of a territorial tax system, assessing a repatriation tax or “toll-charge” on undistributed earnings and profits of U.S.-owned foreign corporations, and introducing certain anti-base erosion provisions, including a new minimum tax on global intangible low-taxed income (“GILTI”) and base erosion and anti-abuse tax (“BEAT”). The new legislation had no effect on our provision for income taxes for 2020 and 2019, because we generated net tax losses and offset our deferred tax assets on the balance sheet with a full valuation allowance due to our current loss position and forecasted losses for the near future. The overall impact of this tax reform is uncertain, and our business and financial condition, including with respect to our non-U.S. operations, could be adversely affected.
In addition to the impact of the Tax Act on our federal taxes, the Tax Act may impact our taxation in other jurisdictions, including with respect to state income taxes. State legislatures have not had sufficient time to respond to the Tax Act. Accordingly, there is uncertainty as to how the laws will apply in the various state jurisdictions. Additionally, other foreign governing bodies may enact changes to their tax laws in reaction to the Tax Act that could result in changes to our global tax position and materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Additionally, the Internal Revenue Service, (the “IRS”) and several foreign tax authorities have increasingly focused attention on intercompany transfer pricing with respect to sales of products and services and the use of intangibles. Tax authorities could disagree with our future intercompany charges, cross-jurisdictional transfer pricing or other matters and assess additional taxes. If we do not prevail in any such disagreements, our profitability may be affected.
Our business is subject to the risks of earthquakes, fire, floods and other natural catastrophic events, global pandemics, and interruptions by man-made problems, such as terrorism. Material disruptions of our business or information systems resulting from these events could adversely affect our operating results.
A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, fire, flood, hurricane or significant power outage or other similar events, such as infectious disease outbreaks or pandemic events, could have an adverse effect on our business and operating results. One of our offices is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity. In addition, natural disasters, acts of terrorism or war could cause disruptions in our remaining manufacturing operations, our or our customers’ or channel partners’ businesses, our suppliers’ or the economy as a whole. We also rely on information technology systems to communicate among our workforce and with third parties. Any disruption to our communications, whether caused by a natural disaster or by man made problems, such as power disruptions, could adversely affect our business. We do not have a formal disaster recovery plan or policy in place and do not currently require that our suppliers’ partners have such plans or policies in place. To the extent that any such disruptions result in delays or cancellations of orders or impede our suppliers’ ability to timely deliver product components, or the deployment of our products, our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.
ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.
None.
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES.
Our corporate headquarters is located in Orlando, Florida, where we lease a complex of three buildings with 120,716 square feet pursuant to leases that expire between October 2022 and September 2024. The Orlando facilities contain manufacturing, engineering, research and development, and administrative functions. We also lease 36,419 square feet of office and engineering space in two facilities in Palo Alto, California, 12,900 square feet of office and engineering space in a facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and 5,567 square feet of office and engineering space in a facility in Boston, Massachusetts. The Company believes its existing facilities are adequate for its current requirements.
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
From time to time, we may become involved in actions, claims, suits, and other legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of our business, including assertions by third parties relating to intellectual property infringement, breaches of contract or warranties or employment-related matters. We are not currently a party to any actions, claims, suits or other legal proceedings the outcome of which, if determined adversely to us, would individually or in the aggregate have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES.
Not applicable.
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PART II
ITEM 5. MARKET FOR THE REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES.
Market Information
Our shares of Class A common stock have traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “LAZR,” since December 3, 2020. Prior to that date, our common stock traded under the symbol “GMHI,” since March 25, 2019.
Holders
As of February 18, 2022, there were 373 holders of record of our Class A common stock. The number of record holders is based upon the actual number of holders registered on our books at such date and does not include holders of shares in street name or persons, partnerships, associations, corporations or other entities identified in security position listings maintained by depository trust companies.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain any future earnings and do not expect to pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to declare cash dividends will be made at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on a number of factors, including our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, contractual restrictions, including under any future loan facilities, general business conditions and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
In connection with our investment in units of Robotic Research OpCo, LLC (“Robotic Research”), on December 9, 2021, we sold 618,924 shares of Class A common stock to Robotic Research pursuant to a private placement exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) thereof.
On July 9, 2021, we entered into a Stock Purchase Agreement whereby we agreed to issue to stockholders of OptoGration, Inc. (“OptoGration”) shares of our Class A common stock in consideration for the purchase by us of all outstanding shares of capital stock of OptoGration. Pursuant to the Stock Purchase Agreement, we agreed to issue 370,034 shares of Class A common stock in a private placement exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, in reliance on Section 4(a)(2) thereof. Upon the closing of the consummation of the transactions contemplated by the Stock Purchase Agreement, the shares of Class A common stock were issued on August 3, 2021.
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
In December 2021, our Board of Directors authorized a program for us to repurchase shares of $312.5 million of the Company’s Class A common stock. The Company’s share repurchase program does not obligate the Company to acquire any specific number of shares. Under the program, shares may be repurchased in privately negotiated and/or open market transactions, including under plans complying with Rule 10b5-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Our stock repurchase program may be accelerated, suspended, delayed or discontinued at any time. As of December 31, 2021, approximately $76.6 million remained available for stock repurchases pursuant to our stock repurchase program. The following table summarizes the stock repurchase activity for the three months ended November 30, 2021 and the approximate dollar value of shares that may yet be purchased pursuant to our stock repurchase program (in thousands, except share and per share amounts):
Period(a)


Total
Number of
Shares
Purchased
(b)



Average
Price Paid
per Share
(c)
Total Number
of Shares
Purchased as Part
of Publicly
Announced Program
(d)
Approximate Dollar
Value of Shares that
May Yet Be
Purchased
Under the Program
October 1, 2021 — October 31, 2021— $— — $— 
November 1, 2021 — November 30, 2021— $— — $— 
December 1, 2021 — December 31, 202115,263,761 $15.45 15,263,761 $76,629 
Total15,263,761 $15.45 15,263,761 
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Stock Performance Graph
The graph below compares the cumulative total return on our common stock with that of the NASDAQ Composite Index and the Russell 2000 Index. The period shown commences on December 3, 2020 and ends on December 31, 2021. The graph assumes $100 was invested at the close of market on December 3, 2020 in the common stock of Luminar, the NASDAQ Composite Index and the Russell 2000 Index, and assumes the reinvestment of any dividends. The stock price performance on the following graph is not intended to forecast or be indicative of future stock price performance of our common stock.
lazr-20211231_g1.jpg
This performance graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liabilities under that Section, and shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any filing of Luminar Technologies, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act of 1934 Exchange, as amended.
$100 investment in stock or indexDecember 3, 2020December 31, 2020March 31, 2021June 30, 2021September 30, 2021December 31, 2021
Luminar Technologies, Inc.$100.00 $147.95 $105.79 $95.52 $67.89 $75.15 
NASDAQ Composite Index100.00 104.13 107.03 117.18 116.74 127.18 
Russell 2000 Index100.00 106.82 120.11 124.98 119.24 121.64 
ITEM 6. RESERVED.

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.
The following discussion and analysis provides information that Luminar’s management believes is relevant to an assessment and understanding of Luminar’s consolidated results of operations and financial condition. The discussion should be read together with “Selected Historical Consolidated Financial and Operating Data of Luminar” and the historical audited annual consolidated financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, and the related notes thereto, included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion may contain forward-looking statements based upon Luminar’s current expectations, estimates and projections that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements due to, among other considerations, the matters discussed under “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.” Unless the context otherwise requires, all references in this subsection to “Luminar” refer to the business of Luminar Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its subsidiaries prior to the consummation of the Business Combination, which is the business of the post-Business Combination Company and its subsidiaries following the consummation of the Business Combination.
Discussion regarding our financial condition and results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2019 is included in Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, filed with the SEC on April 14, 2021.
Overview
Our vision is to make autonomous transportation safe and ubiquitous. As a global leader in lidar autonomous driving technology, we are enabling the world’s first autonomous solutions for automotive series production in passenger cars and commercial trucks.
Founded in 2012 by President and Chief Executive Officer Austin Russell, we built a new type of lidar from the chip-level up, with technological breakthroughs across all core components. As a result, we have created what we believe is a lidar sensor that meets the demanding performance, safety, and cost requirements for Level 3 through Level 5 autonomous vehicles in production, bypassing the traditional limitations of legacy lidar technology, while also enabling Level 0 through Level 2 Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (“ADAS”) with our Proactive Safety solution. Integrating this advanced hardware with our custom developed software stack enables a turn-key autonomous solution to accelerate widespread adoption across automakers at series production scale.
Our lidar hardware and software products help set the standard for safety in the industry, and are designed to enable accurate and reliable detections of some of the most challenging “edge cases” that autonomous vehicles can encounter on a regular basis. This is achieved by advancing existing lidar range and resolution to new levels, ensuring hard-to-see objects like a tire on the road ahead or a child that runs into the street are not missed, as well as our software to interpret the data and inform autonomous and assisted driving decisions.
Business Combinations
Reverse Merger with Gores
On December 2, 2020 (the “Closing Date”), we merged with Gores Metropoulos, Inc. (“Gores”), at which time First Merger Sub, a newly formed subsidiary of Gores, merged with and into Luminar Technologies, Inc. (the “Company” or “Luminar”), with Luminar being the surviving corporation (the “First Merger”). Immediately following the consummation of the First Merger and as part of the same overall transaction as the First Merger, Luminar, merged with and into Dawn Merger Sub II, LLC (“Second Merger Sub”), a newly formed subsidiary of Gores, with Second Merger Sub continuing as the surviving entity (the “Second Merger” and, in combination with the First Merger and the other related transactions, the “Business Combination”). Luminar was deemed the accounting predecessor and the post-combination Company is the successor SEC registrant, which means that Luminar’s financial statements for previous periods will be disclosed in our future periodic reports filed with the SEC, as appropriate. The Business Combination was accounted for as a reverse recapitalization. Under this method of accounting, Gores was treated as the acquired company for financial statement reporting purposes.
OptoGration Acquisition
On August 3, 2021, we completed our acquisition of OptoGration. The OptoGration acquisition helps us secure intellectual property and supply of Indium Gallium Arsenide (“InGaAs”) photodetector semiconductor chips, which are used to convert optical power into an electrical current. The acquisition of OptoGration is part of our vertical integration strategy, which will secure supply of a key component of our sensor technology.
COVID-19 Impact
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has adversely affected our and some of our customers’ business operations. The extent of the continued impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our operational and financial performance will depend on
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various future developments, including the duration and spread of the outbreak, including the emergence of variants, and impact on our customers, suppliers, and employees, all of which is uncertain at this time. We expect the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to adversely impact our business, including product development and industrialization initiatives, timing of shipment of products and provision of services to customers, supply chain, and may impact our financial position and results of operations. We are unable to predict at this time the potential adverse impact. For more information on our operations and risks related to health epidemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic, see Item 1A. Risk Factors in this Form 10-K.
Basis of Presentation
We currently conduct our business through two operating segments: (i) Autonomy Solutions and (ii) Components.
Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
Our revenue producing activities are organized in two operating segments: (i) Autonomy Solutions and (ii) Components.
The Autonomy Solutions segment is engaged in design, manufacturing, and sale of lidar sensors as well as related perception and autonomy enabling software solutions catering mainly to the original equipment manufacturers in the automobile, commercial vehicle, robo-taxi and adjacent industries. The Autonomy Solutions segment revenue also includes fees earned from non-recurring engineering services provided to customers in connection with customization of our sensor and software products.
The Components segment primarily provides designing, testing, consulting services and manufacturing for non-standard integrated circuits and components to various customers, including government agencies and defense contractors generally for purposes unrelated to autonomous vehicles.
Revenue is recognized when control of the promised goods or services is transferred to our customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those goods or services. Fixed fee arrangements are satisfied over time and utilize the input method based on costs incurred. Accordingly, revenue for fixed fee arrangements is recognized on a percentage of completion basis. Certain customer contracts are also structured as time and materials and billed at cost of time incurred plus a markup. Such time and material contracts are recognized over time.
Cost of sales and gross profit (loss)
Cost of sales includes the fixed and variable manufacturing cost of our lidar sensors, which primarily consists of personnel-related costs including certain engineering personnel and stock-based compensation and material purchases from third-party contract manufacturers and suppliers which are directly associated with our manufacturing process. Cost of sales includes cost of providing services to customers, depreciation and amortization for manufacturing fixed assets or equipment, cost of components, product testing costs, an allocated portion of overhead, facility and information technology (“IT”) costs, write downs for excess and obsolete inventory and shipping costs.
The Components segment provides certain services and components to the Autonomy Solutions segment which are recorded as cost of goods sold or research and development costs depending on the nature and use of such services and components by the Autonomy Solutions segment. These inter-segment transactions are eliminated in the consolidated results.
Gross profit (loss) equals revenue less cost of sales.
Operating Expenses
Research and Development (R&D)
R&D costs are expensed as incurred.
Our R&D efforts are focused on enhancing and developing additional functionality for our existing products and on new product development, including new releases and upgrades to our lidar sensors and integrated software solutions. R&D expenses consist primarily of:
Personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation expense, for personnel in our research and engineering functions;
Expenses related to materials, software licenses, supplies and third-party services;
Prototype expenses; and
An allocated portion of facility and IT costs and depreciation.
The Components segment provides certain services and components to the Autonomy Solutions segment which are recorded as cost of goods sold or research and development costs depending on the nature and use of such services and
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components by the Autonomy Solutions segment. These inter-segment transactions are eliminated in our consolidated results. We expect our R&D costs to increase for the foreseeable future as we continue to invest in research and development activities to achieve our product roadmap.
Sales and Marketing Expenses
Sales and marketing expenses consist of personnel and personnel-related expenses, including stock-based compensation of our business development team as well as advertising and marketing expenses. These include the cost of marketing programs, trade shows, promotional materials, demonstration equipment, an allocated portion of facility and IT costs and depreciation.
We expect to increase our sales and marketing activities, mainly in order to continue to build out our geographic presence to be closer to our partners and better serve them. We also expect that our sales and marketing expenses will increase over time as we continue to hire additional personnel to scale our business.
General and Administrative Expenses
General and administrative expenses consist of personnel and personnel-related expenses, including stock-based compensation of our executive, finance, human resources, information systems and legal departments as well as legal and accounting fees for professional and contract services.
We expect our general and administrative expenses to increase for the foreseeable future as we scale headcount with the growth of our business, and as a result of operating as a public company, including compliance with the rules and regulations of the SEC, legal, audit, additional insurance expenses, investor relations activities, and other administrative and professional services.
Change in Fair Value of Warrants
Change in fair value of warrants are non-cash changes and primarily consist of changes in fair value related to said instruments. The warrant liabilities are classified as marked-to-market liabilities and the corresponding increase or decrease in value impacts our net loss.
Interest Income and Other, and Interest Expense and Other
Interest income and other consists primarily of income earned on our cash equivalents and marketable securities. These amounts will vary based on our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances, and also with market rates. It also includes realized gains and losses related to the marketable securities, as well as impact of gains and losses related to foreign exchange transactions. Interest expense and other consisted primarily of interest on convertible senior notes issued in December 2021, finance leases and interest on our senior secured term loan facility, which was repaid upon consummation of the Business Combination.
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Results of Operations
Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2021 and 2020
The results of operations presented below should be reviewed in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included elsewhere in this report. The following table sets forth our consolidated results of operations data for the periods presented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,ChangeChange
20212020$%
Revenue$31,944 $13,951 $17,993 129 %
Cost of sales46,092 24,952 21,140 85 %
Gross loss(14,148)(11,001)(3,147)29 %
Operating Expenses:
Research and development88,861 38,651 50,210 130 %
Sales and marketing17,858 7,948 9,910 125 %
General and administrative93,685 29,275 64,410 220 %
Total operating expenses200,404 75,874 124,530 164 %
Loss from operations(214,552)(86,875)(127,677)147 %
Other income (expense), net:
Change in fair value of warrants(26,126)(268,266)242,140 (90)%
Loss on extinguishment of debt— (3,996)3,996 (100)%
Interest expense and other(2,028)(2,885)857 (30)%
Interest income and other3,458 (276)3,734 (1353)%
Total other income (expense), net(24,696)(275,423)250,727 (91)%
Loss before benefit from income taxes(239,248)(362,298)123,050 (34)%
Benefit from income taxes(1,262)— (1,262)nm
Net loss$(237,986)$(362,298)$124,312 (34)%
Revenue
The increase in revenue for 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily driven by increased revenue from our Autonomy Solutions segment. The breakdown of our revenue by our segments for the periods presented was as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,ChangeChange
20212020$%
Revenue from sales to external customers:
Autonomy Solutions$28,497 $11,387 $17,110 150 %
Components3,447 2,564 883 34 %
Total$31,944 $13,951 $17,993 129 %
The increase in revenue of our Autonomy Solutions segment in 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily driven by (a) 142% increase in revenue from customization / non-recurring engineering services and (b) 177% increase in sales of sensors.
The increase in revenue of our Components segment in 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily due to revenue from OptoGration acquired in August 2021.
Cost of Sales
The $21.1 million increase in our cost of sales in 2021 compared to 2020, was primarily due to increase in sales of sensors and increase in customization / NRE services. These increases were partially offset by lower excess inventory reserves and recovery of previously reserved Model Hydra sensors sold during 2021 due to higher customer demand.
Operating Expenses
Research and Development
The $50.2 million increase in research and development expenses in 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily due:
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$25.5 million increase in personnel-related costs driven mainly by increased headcount and increased stock-based compensation expense; and
$14.7 million increased contractor fees and external spend in relation to continued development and testing of our sensor and software products, as well as development activities related to advanced manufacturing.
Sales and Marketing
The $9.9 million increase in sales and marketing expenses for 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily due:
a $6.2 million increase in personnel related costs including stock-based compensation costs from increase in headcount; and
a $2.6 million increase in marketing expenses related to trade shows and presentations in auto industry conventions as well as increased spend with outside consultants related to business development activities.
General and Administrative
The $64.4 million increase in general and administrative expenses for 2021 compared to 2020 was primarily due to:
a $41.2 million increase in personnel costs including stock-based compensation costs, driven mainly by increased headcount;
a $7.5 million increase in costs associated with (a) recruiting costs; and (b) being a public company, for example audit fees, tax advisory fees, listing fees, etc.; and
a $4.5 million increase in travel related expenses as domestic and international travel increased with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
Change in Fair Value of Warrant Liabilities
The change in fair value of warrant liabilities is a non-cash benefit or charge due to the corresponding decrease or increase in the estimated fair value of warrants.
Pursuant to the Business Combination, the 2017 Warrants, 2018 Warrants and 2020 Warrants were exercised on December 2, 2020. Prior to the exercise, the fair value of the warrants was calculated using the closing stock price on December 2, 2020, and the increase in the fair value was recorded. The non-cash charge related to the 2017 Warrants, 2018 Warrants and 2020 Warrants was $27.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Further, subsequent to the Business Combination, we had 13,333,309 Public Warrants and 6,666,666 Private Warrants outstanding as of December 31, 2020. The non-cash charge related to the Public and Private Warrants recorded in December 2020 was $241.0 million.
In March 2021, 16,718,316 Public and Private Warrants were exercised and the remaining 204,638 Public Warrants were redeemed. The non-cash charge related to Public and Private Warrants was $26.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2021.
Loss on Extinguishment of Debt
The $4.0 million loss on extinguishment of debt in 2020 related to the termination and prepayment of the senior secured term loan.
Segment Operating Loss
Segment profit or loss is defined as income or loss before taxes. Our segment loss breakdown is as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,ChangeChange
20212020$%
Segment operating loss
Autonomy Solutions$(214,133)$(86,661)$(127,472)147 %
Components(324)(316)(8)%
Liquidity and Capital Resources
Sources of Liquidity and Capital Requirements
Our capital requirements will depend on many factors, including lidar and software sales volume, the timing and extent of spending to support R&D efforts, investments in information technology systems, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, and market adoption of new and enhanced products and features. Until we can generate sufficient revenue from sale
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of products and services to cover our operating expenses, working capital, and capital expenditures, we expect our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, and proceeds from debt and/or equity financings to fund our cash needs. If we are required to raise additional funds by issuing equity securities, dilution to stockholders would result. Any equity securities issued may also provide for rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. If we raise funds by issuing debt securities, these debt securities may have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. The terms of debt securities or borrowings could impose significant restrictions on our operations. The credit market and financial services industry have in the past, and may in the future, experience periods of uncertainty that could impact the availability and cost of equity and debt financing.
We expect to continue to invest in our product and software development as well as incur efforts to build customer relations and markets. Further, we expect to invest in developing advanced manufacturing capabilities, both, internally as well as with our contract manufacturing partners. For example, in January 2022, we executed an arrangement with Celestica committing approximately $26.9 million for purchase of capital equipment as well as engineering efforts related to manufacturing process. We expect to fund these product and business development initiatives, and capital expenditures either through our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities or through our stock-as-cash program.
As of December 31, 2021, we had cash and cash equivalents totaling $330.0 million and marketable securities of $462.1 million. To date, our principal sources of liquidity have been proceeds received from issuances of debt and equity. Market and economic conditions, such as increase in interest rates by federal agencies, may materially impact relative cost and mix of these sources of liquidity.
In December 2021, we issued $625.0 million aggregate principal amount of 1.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2026 in a private placement (the “Convertible Senior Notes”). The interest on the Convertible Senior Notes is payable semi-annually in arrears on June 15 and December 15 of each year, beginning on June 15, 2022. The Convertible Senior Notes will mature on December 15, 2026, unless earlier repurchased or redeemed by us or converted pursuant to their terms. The total net proceeds from the debt offering, after deducting debt fees paid to the initial purchasers, was approximately $609.4 million.
We have not generated positive cash flows from operating activities and have incurred significant losses from operations in the past as reflected in our accumulated deficit of $822.5 million as of December 31, 2021. We expect to continue to incur operating losses for at least the foreseeable future due to continued R&D investments that we intend to make in our business and, as a result, we may require additional capital resources to grow our business. We believe that current cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities will be sufficient to continue to execute our business strategy in the next 12 months and until we expect to begin series production.
Cash Flow Summary
The following table summarizes Luminar’s cash flows for the periods presented:
Year ended December 31,
20212020
Net cash provided by (used in):
Operating activities$(148,421)$(75,642)
Investing activities(194,188)(271,794)
Financing activities463,592 529,850 
Operating Activities
Net cash used in operating activities was $148.4 million during the year ended December 31, 2021. Net cash used in operating activities was due to our net loss of $238.0 million, adjusted for non-cash items of $129.5 million, primarily consisting of $77.7 million of stock-based compensation, $26.1 million of change in fair value of warrant liabilities, $10.8 million of vendor payments in stock in lieu of cash, $4.2 million of depreciation and amortization and $2.9 million of inventory impairment offset by use of cash for operating assets and liabilities of $39.9 million due to the timing of cash payments to vendors and cash receipts from customers.
Investing Activities
Net cash used in investing activities of $194.2 million in 2021 comprised of $716.9 million related to purchases of marketable securities and $6.4 million in capital expenditures, offset by $366.9 million and $161.9 million, respectively, of cash proceeds from maturities and sales of marketable securities.
Financing Activities
Net cash provided by financing activities of $463.6 million in 2021 primarily related to $609.4 million of cash received from the issuance of Convertible Senior Notes, $153.9 million of cash received from exercises of Public and Private Warrants,
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$5.9 million of cash received from exercises of stock options, offset by $231.6 million of cash paid for repurchases of common stock and redemption of Public Warrants and $73.4 million of cash paid for purchases of capped call options.
Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates
We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”). The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates, assumptions and judgments that can significantly impact the amounts we report as assets, liabilities, revenue, costs and expenses and the related disclosures. We base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ significantly from these estimates under different assumptions and conditions. We believe that the accounting policies and estimates discussed below are critical to understanding our historical and future performance as these policies involve a greater degree of judgment and complexity.
Revenue
Revenue from product sales is recognized upon transfer of control of promised products. Revenue for service projects is recognized as services are performed and amounts are earned in accordance with the terms of a contract. Revenue is recognized in an amount that reflects the consideration that we expect to receive in exchange for those products and services.
Revenues related to NRE projects are recognized over time using the cost input method. In using this input method, we generally apply the cost-to-cost method of accounting where sales and profits are recorded based on the ratio of costs incurred to estimated total costs at completion. Recognition of profit on the NRE contracts requires estimates of the total contract value, the total cost at completion, and the measurement of progress towards completion. Significant judgment is required when estimating total contract costs and progress to completion on the arrangements, as well as whether a loss is expected to be incurred on the contract. In estimating total contract costs, we are also required to estimate the effort expected to be incurred to complete a NRE project. These estimates are subject to significant estimation uncertainty as actual time and effort incurred on completing a NRE project or actual rates of either internal or contracted personnel working on such NRE projects may differ from our estimates. If circumstances arise that change the original estimates of revenues, costs, or extent of progress toward completion, revisions to the estimates are made. These revisions may result in increases or decreases in estimated revenues or costs, and such revisions are reflected in income in the period in which the circumstances that gave rise to the revision become known to us. We perform ongoing profitability analysis of our contracts accounted for under this method to determine whether the latest estimates of revenues, costs, and profits require updating. If at any time these estimates indicate that the contract will be unprofitable, the entire estimated loss for the remainder of the contract is recorded immediately.
We enter into contracts that can include various combinations of products and services, which are generally capable of being distinct and accounted for as separate performance obligations; however, determining whether products or services are considered distinct performance obligations that should be accounted for separately versus together may sometimes require significant judgment. Transaction price is allocated to each performance obligation on a relative standalone selling price (“SSP”) basis. Judgment is required to determine SSP for each distinct performance obligation. We use a range of sales prices from actual sales to customers to estimate SSP when products and services are sold separately. In instances where SSP is not directly observable, we determine SSP using information that may include other observable inputs available to it.
Changes in judgments with respect to these assumptions and estimates could impact the timing or amount of revenue recognition.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements
See Note 2 in Item 8. of this Form 10-K for information related to recent accounting pronouncements.
ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK.
We are exposed to various market risks, which may result in potential losses arising from adverse changes in market rates, such as interest rates and foreign exchange rates. We do not enter into derivatives or other financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes and do not believe we are exposed to material market risk with respect to our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.
Interest Rate Risk. We had cash and cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaling $792.1 million as of December 31, 2021. Cash equivalents and marketable securities were invested primarily in U.S. treasury securities, commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. agency and government sponsored securities, equity investments and asset-backed securities. Our investment policy is focused on the preservation of capital and supporting our liquidity needs. Under the policy, we invest in highly rated securities, while limiting the amount of credit exposure to any one issuer other than the U.S. government. We do not invest in financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes, nor do we use leveraged financial instruments. We utilize external investment managers who adhere to the guidelines of our investment policy. A hypothetical 100 basis point change in interest rates would not have a material impact on the value of our cash and cash equivalents or marketable investments.
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As of December 31, 2021, the principal amount outstanding of our Convertible Senior Notes was $625.0 million. The fair value of the Convertible Senior Notes is subject to interest rate risk, market risk and other factors due to their conversion features. The fair value of the Convertible Senior Notes will generally increase as our common stock price increases and will generally decrease as our common stock price declines. The interest and market value changes affect the fair value of the Convertible Senior Notes but do not impact our financial position, cash flows or results of operations due to the fixed nature of the debt obligations. We carry the Convertible Senior Notes at face value less unamortized discount on our consolidated balance sheets.
Our Convertible Senior Notes bear fixed interest rate, and therefore, are not subject to interest rate risk. We have not utilized derivative financial instruments, derivative commodity instruments or other market risk sensitive instruments, positions or transactions in any material fashion, except for the privately negotiated capped call transactions entered into in December 2021 related to the issuance of our Convertible Senior Notes.
Foreign Currency Exchange Risk. Our results of operations and cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Currently, all of our revenue is generated in U.S. dollars. Our expenses are generally denominated in the currencies of the jurisdictions in which we conduct our operations, which are primarily in the U.S. and in Europe. Luminar’s results of operations and cash flows in the future may be adversely affected due to an expansion of non-U.S. dollar denominated contracts, growth of its international entities, and changes in foreign exchange rates. The effect of a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would not have a material impact on our historical or current consolidated financial statements. To date, we have not engaged in any hedging strategies. As our international operations grow, we will continue to reassess our approach to manage the risk relating to fluctuations in currency rates.
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ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA.
LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
INDEX TO THE CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm (Deloitte & Touche LLP, San Jose, CA, PCAOB ID No. 34)

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REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
To the stockholders and the Board of Directors of Luminar Technologies, Inc.
Opinion on the Financial Statements
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Luminar Technologies, Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, the related consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss, convertible preferred stock and stockholders’ equity (deficit), and cash flows, for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2021, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2021, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.
We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2021, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission and our report dated March 1, 2022, expressed an adverse opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting because of material weaknesses.
Change in Accounting Principle
As discussed in Note 2 to the financial statements, effective January 1, 2021, the Company has changed its method of accounting for leases and credit losses due to adoption of Accounting Standards Codification Topic 842 (ASU No. 2018-20), Leases, and all subsequent amendments (collectively, “ASC 842”) using the modified retrospective approach, and Topic 326 (ASU 2016-13), Financial Instruments – Credit Losses, using the modified retrospective approach, respectively.
Basis for Opinion
These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.
Critical Audit Matter
The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.
Revenue — Non-recurring Engineering (“NRE”) services — Refer to Notes 2 and 4 to the financial statements
Critical Audit Matter Description
The Company recognizes revenue from non-recurring engineering services under fixed fee arrangements (“NRE services”) to integrate Luminar lidar hardware for autonomy in vehicle platforms. NRE services are recognized over time using an input method based on contract costs incurred to date compared to total estimated contract costs. The accounting for these contracts involves judgment, particularly as it relates to estimating total contract costs.
Given the judgments necessary to determine total estimated contract costs used to recognize revenue for NRE services, auditing such estimates required extensive audit effort due to the high degree of auditor judgment required when performing audit procedures and evaluating the results of those procedures.
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How the Critical Audit Matter Was Addressed in the Audit
Our audit procedures related to management’s estimates of total contract costs used to recognize revenue for NRE services included the following, among others:
We tested the effectiveness of controls over long-term engineering services contract revenue, including management’s controls over the total estimated contract costs.
We selected a sample of NRE service contracts and performed the following:
Evaluated the estimates of total contract costs by:
Inquiring with management to obtain an understanding of its key inputs and assumptions used to determine total cost estimates.
Evaluating management’s ability to achieve the estimates of total cost by performing corroborating inquiries with the Company’s project managers and engineers.
Comparing inputs and assumptions to management’s work plans, engineering specifications, supplier contracts, and payroll data.
Assessing management’s ability to estimate total costs accurately by comparing actual costs to management’s historical estimates for performance obligations that have been fulfilled.
Testing the mathematical accuracy of management’s calculation of estimated total contract cost.

/s/ DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP
San Jose, California
March 1, 2022
We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2020.




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LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Balance Sheets
(In thousands, except share and per share data)
December 31,
20212020
ASSETS
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents$329,977 $208,944 
Restricted cash725 775 
Marketable securities (including $12,200 with a related party as of December 31, 2021, see Note 19)
462,141 276,710 
Accounts receivable13,013 5,971 
Inventory10,342 3,613 
Prepaid expenses and other current assets29,195 4,797 
Total current assets845,393 500,810 
Property and equipment, net11,009 7,689 
Operating lease right-of-use assets9,145  
Intangible assets, net2,424  
Goodwill3,110 701 
Other non-current assets12,455 1,151 
Total assets$883,536 $510,351 
LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable$14,419 $6,039 
Accrued and other current liabilities19,844 10,452 
Operating lease liabilities4,735  
Debt, current 99 
Total current liabilities38,998 16,590 
Warrant liabilities31,230 343,400 
Debt, non-current 302 
Convertible senior notes608,957  
Operating lease liabilities, non-current5,768  
Other non-current liabilities598 1,318 
Total liabilities685,551 361,610 
Commitments and contingencies (see Note 17)
Stockholders’ equity:
Preferred stock, $0.0001 par value; 10,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2021 and 2020
  
Class A common stock, $0.0001 par value; 715,000,000 shares authorized, 266,076,525 shares issued, 250,812,764 shares outstanding as of December 31, 2021; 715,000,000 shares authorized, 218,818,037 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2020
27 22 
Class B common stock, $0.0001 par value; 121,000,000 shares authorized, 97,088,670 shares and 105,118,203 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively
10 11 
Additional paid-in capital1,257,214 733,175 
Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss)(908)34 
Treasury stock, at cost, 15,263,761 and 0 shares as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively
(235,871) 
Accumulated deficit(822,487)(584,501)
Total stockholders’ equity197,985 148,741 
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity$883,536 $510,351 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.
52


LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss
(In thousands, except share and per share data)
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Revenue:
Products$10,118 $4,840 $12,602 
Services21,826 9,111  
Total revenue31,944 13,951 12,602 
Cost of sales:
Products23,484 15,097 16,655 
Services22,608 9,855  
Total cost of sales46,092 24,952 16,655 
Gross loss(14,148)(11,001)(4,053)
Operating expenses:
Research and development88,861 38,651 36,971 
Sales and marketing17,858 7,948 4,730 
General and administrative93,685 29,275 16,861 
Total operating expenses200,404 75,874 58,562 
Loss from operations(214,552)(86,875)(62,615)
Other income (expense), net:
Change in fair value of SAFE notes  (24,215)
Change in fair value of warrant liabilities(26,126)(268,266)(256)