Lidar company Luminar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after months of layoffs, executive departures and a legal battle with its biggest customer, Volvo.
The company plans to sell its lidar business during the bankruptcy process and has already entered into an agreement to sell its semiconductor subsidiary. While the company will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process to “minimize disruption” to its suppliers and customers, Luminar will ultimately cease to exist once it is complete.
“After a comprehensive review of our alternative options, the board has determined that a court-supervised sale process is the best way forward,” Luminar CEO Paul Ricci said in a statement. “As we navigate this process, our top priority is to continue to deliver the same quality, reliability and service that our customers have come to expect from us.”
The bankruptcy case, filed in the Southern District of Texas on Monday morning, comes at the end of a tumultuous year for a company that was valued at more than $3 billion when it went public in a reverse merger in 2020.
Luminar founder Austin Russell abruptly stepped down as CEO in May following an “investigation into our code of business conduct and ethics,” though he remained on the company’s board. In October, he launched a new venture called Russell AI Labs and made a bid to acquire Luminar.
Russell still plans to bid for what’s left of Luminar in the bankruptcy process, a Russell AI Labs spokesperson told TechCrunch.
“Over the past three months – at the invitation of a number of key stakeholders, including Luminar’s board members – Russell AI Labs, in partnership with a major technology company, has been working with Luminar on a proposal to provide a landing pad for the company and to maintain and create shareholder value. Unfortunately, they went in a different direction as evidenced by today’s events,” the spokesperson said.
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“It has been challenging for Mr. Russell to watch from the sidelines, and Russell AI Labs believes we can create tremendous value with Luminar’s technology platform, restore key customer relationships, advance the mission of saving millions of lives, and build the business stronger than ever,” they continued.
The company, meanwhile, cut 25% of its workforce – its second layoff of the year. Luminar’s CFO left the company, the company defaulted on some loans, and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation.
Luminar was also hit with eviction proceedings in October in an office and this out of lease in another in November.
Another big blow came in November when Volvo, one of Luminar’s early backers and its biggest road customer this year, canceled a five-year contract with the lidar maker. Luminar said it has taken legal action against Volvo over the break-up, but has also accepted its own legal claim from the manufacturer that made the lidar sensors.
Luminar claims to have between $100 million and $500 million in assets and between $500 and $1 billion in liabilities, according to the bankruptcy filings. Among those liabilities is a $10 million debt owed to Scale AI, which was helping Luminar with data labeling. Luminar also owes more than $1 million to AI software company Applied Intuition.
This story has been updated with a statement from Russell AI Labs.
