Luminar and Gores Metropoulos Announce Closing of Business Combination

Luminar raises nearly $600M gross proceeds; begins trading Dec 3rd under ticker “LAZR”

Luminar Technologies, the global leader in automotive lidar hardware and software technology, and Gores Metropoulos, a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of The Gores Group, LLC and an affiliate of Metropoulos and Co., announced the completion of their previously announced business combination. The combined company will retain the Luminar Technologies, Inc. name and will commence trading on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol “LAZR”.

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The successful completion of the Business Combination is reinforced by several landmark achievements in 2020, including the introduction of Luminar’s Iris LiDAR and software products for series production across all three industry verticals: consumer vehicles, trucking, and robo-taxis. Earlier this year, Luminar signed the industry’s first production deal for autonomous consumer vehicles with Volvo Cars, while also recently striking deals with Daimler Truck AG and Intel’s Mobileye. Following the Business Combination, Luminar expects to accelerate commercial growth across its over 50 commercial partners while further expanding its autonomous software and Proactive safety ADAS solutions. Luminar’s Iris is designed into vehicle models planned to commence series production starting in 2022.

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“This is an incredibly proud moment for the entire Luminar team and a milestone for the industry at large,” said Austin Russell, Founder and CEO of Luminar. “Over the past few years, we’ve made the transition from a technology development startup to now a global provider of autonomous systems to many of the world’s largest OEMs and commercial trucking players to power their autonomous future in production. We look forward to accelerating widespread commercial adoption of autonomy and proactive safety solutions and embarking on the next phase of our journey as a public company, which will solidify our leadership position well into the future and enable autonomy at an unprecedented scale.”

Alec Gores, CEO of Gores Metropoulos, said, “Luminar is unrivaled in its technology and ability to enable autonomy for production vehicles. As a public company, Luminar will now have the platform to fully execute against its vision, further accelerate its commercial programs and expand its already dominant market leadership. We are excited to close this transaction, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside Austin and the entire management team to make our safe autonomous future a reality.”

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