By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Aeva Technologies said on Tuesday that South Korean camera module maker LG Innotek will take an equity stake in Aeva as part of a $50 million strategic collaboration.
Aeva makes lidar sensors that help vehicles and industrial equipment gain a detailed three-dimensional view of their environment and detect how fast surrounding objects are moving. It supplies sensors to vehicle firms such as Daimler Truck and industrial equipment makers such as Nikon.
As part of the deal, LG Innotek will make a $32 million equity investment in Aeva for a “single-digit percentage ownership” in the company, Aeva CEO Soroush Salehian told Reuters in an interview.
The remainder of the deal will go toward building production capacity for sensors that can go into robotics and consumer devices, in addition to Aeva’s existing markets of vehicles and industrial equipment.
“The ultimate goal of this partnership is for LG Innotek and Aeva to grow together as key players leading the next-generation lidar market through a long-term technology partnership that goes beyond the supply of products,” the South Korean electronics supplier’s CEO, Hyuksoo Moon, said in a statement.
Salehian told Reuters that Aeva is working to integrate its entire sensor into a single chip whose price can be driven low enough to make it viable in consumer electronics such as augmented reality headsets.
“The roadmap that we’re going towards is double-digit dollars,” Salehian told Reuters. “We are already working towards the next generation that will allow for a very low-cost solution, which we think will be a game changer for mass adoption of what we call precision sensing.”
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
