Lidar maker Luminar declares bankruptcy

Lidar company Luminar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after months of layoffs, executive departures, and a legal battle with its largest customer, Volvo.

The company aims to sell its lidar business during bankruptcy proceedings, and has already reached a deal to sell its semiconductor business. While the company will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process to “minimize disruption” to its suppliers and customers, Luminar will eventually cease to exist once it is complete.

“After a comprehensive review of our alternatives, the board has determined that a court-supervised sale is the best path forward,” Paul Ritchie, Luminar’s CEO, said in a statement. “As we navigate this process, our top priority is to continue to provide 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 turbulent 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 resigned as CEO in May following a “code of business conduct and ethics investigation,” though he remains on the company’s board. In October, he launched a new effort called Russell AI Labs and made a bid to buy Luminar outright.

Russell still plans to bid on what’s left of Luminar during the bankruptcy process, a Russell AI Labs spokesperson told TechCrunch.

“Over the past three months – at the invitation of some key stakeholders including Luminar board members – Russell AI Labs, in partnership with a large technology company, has collaborated with Luminar on a proposal to provide a landing pad for the company and preserve and create value for shareholders. Unfortunately, they have gone in a different direction, as evidenced by today’s events,” the spokesperson said.

“It has been difficult for Mr. Russell to watch from the sidelines, and Russell AI Labs believes we can create tremendous value through the Luminar technology platform, restore relationships with key customers, advance the mission to save millions of lives, and build the business stronger than ever,” they continued.

Meanwhile, the company cut 25% of its workforce, its second layoff this year. Luminar’s CFO left the company, the company defaulted on a number of loans, and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation.

Luminar also was hit with an eviction lawsuit in October at one office, and terminated a lease for other offices in November.

Another big blow came in November when Volvo, an early backer of Luminar and its biggest customer this year, canceled a five-year contract with the sensor maker. Luminar said it had taken legal action against Volvo over the divestment, but had also been hit with a legal claim of its own from the contract manufacturer that already made the lidar sensors.

Luminar claims to have assets between $100 million and $500 million and liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion, according to bankruptcy filings. Among those liabilities is a $10 million debt owed to Scale AI, which was helping Luminar classify data. Luminar also owes more than $1 million to artificial intelligence software company Applied Intuition.

This story has been updated with a statement from Russell AI Labs.