In the sixth grade, Austin Russell turned a Nintendo gaming handset into a cell phone. At 15, he built a holographic keyboard. By 17, he\u2019d filed for a patent. Now at 22, he\u2019s running a startup at the heart of Silicon Valley\u2019s latest technology mania.<\/p>\n
As founder and chief executive officer of Luminar Technologies Inc., Russell and his team are building lidar, a hyper-accurate laser sensing technology crucial for self-driving cars. Google parent Alphabet Inc.<\/a> is suing Uber Technologies Inc.<\/a> for allegedly stealing lidar designs, while startups Velodyne Lidar Inc. and Quanergy Systems Inc.<\/a> have raised at least $150 million apiece from giants like Ford Motor Co., Baidu Inc., Daimler AG and Samsung Electronics Co.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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Russell has raised a similar amount, according to people familiar with Luminar\u2019s finances. The company, founded in 2012, had sought a valuation above $1 billion when it was raising money last year, one of the people said. It\u2019s unclear who invested — Luminar is in “stealth” mode, meaning it hasn\u2019t announced itself to the world yet. A spokeswoman declined to comment, as did Russell\u2019s father Michael, a commercial real estate veteran who serves as chief financial officer. A message sent to Austin Russell through his LinkedIn profile was answered by his assistant, who declined to comment.Russell has raised a similar amount, according to people familiar with Luminar\u2019s finances. The company, founded in 2012, had sought a valuation above $1 billion when it was raising money last year, one of the people said. It\u2019s unclear who invested — Luminar is in “stealth” mode, meaning it hasn\u2019t announced itself to the world yet. A spokeswoman declined to comment, as did Russell\u2019s father Michael, a commercial real estate veteran who serves as chief financial officer. A message sent to Austin Russell through his LinkedIn profile was answered by his assistant, who declined to comment. <\/span>
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<\/span> That a relatively unknown college dropout of barely drinking age can raise millions of dollars shows the appetite for lidar. \u201cIt\u2019s a gold rush and we\u2019re selling pickaxes,\u201d said Velodyne President Mike Jellen, who graduated college years before Russell was born. Several car companies want autonomous vehicles on the road by 2020 or 2021, which means they\u2019re starting to order lots of lidar systems. Velodyne expects to ship 12,000 units this year, 80,000 in 2018 and 1.7 million by 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n
A top-of-the-range lidar from Velodyne sells for more than $50,000. It offers cheaper lidar, which generates lower-definition 3-D images, for about $8,000, while Quanergy has a product that sells for some $4,000. Autonomous cars often require two or more lidar sensors, so having a capable system can get expensive.<\/p>\n
Russell is trying to develop a lidar priced significantly less than $1,000, according to people with knowledge of Luminar\u2019s planning. Quanergy aims to have one that sells below $100 in three to four years.<\/span><\/p>\n
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In a recent demonstration, the images generated by Luminar\u2019s lidar system were higher-definition than those produced by competing equipment made by Velodyne or Quanergy, according to someone who saw the equipment first-hand, but was not allowed to discuss it publicly. Another version generated even sharper images, but the information was processed with a slight delay — because of a lack of computing power to crunch all the data rather than a problem with the core technology, the person said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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<\/a>Another “unicorn”, only because it’s not a clever internet idea and actually have to deliver a physical product that is bound by the laws of physics, it ain’t quite so easy.<\/p>\n