Editor? /? Tu Yanping
Design? /? Zhao Haoran
Source? /? Autonews, Forbes, by Allen? Osman, Joshua? Franklin, Stephen? Nelis
The stock frenzy triggered by the merger of high-tech transportation companies through special purpose acquisition in 2020 is not over yet. Aeva, a Silicon Valley startup, is a sensor manufacturer for self-driving cars, which integrates the functions of lidar, camera and radar, and is moving towards the new york Stock Exchange, where a transaction has pushed its valuation to more than $2 billion.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, the company was founded by two former Apple engineers and is currently merging with InterPrivate. It is expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange before the first quarter of 20021with the stock code "AEVA".
InterPrivate is a private equity investor Ahmed Fato (Ahmed? Special purpose acquisition company led by Fatu). In February this year, the company raised $265.438 million through its initial public offering.
A special purpose acquisition company is a shell company, which usually uses the proceeds from IPO to acquire a private company within two years. For the acquired company, merging with the special purpose acquisition company is another option to go public through the traditional IPO.
Aeva's transaction will provide a total revenue of up to $343 million, and investors include Adage? Capital and Porsche Holding Company. After the company went public, previous investors included Lux? Capital, Canaan partner (Canaan? Partners) and Lockheed Martin (Lockheed? Martin) will continue to hold shares in the company.
Aeva was founded by former Apple engineer Soroush? Salehian) and Mina Ritzk (Mina? Rezk) founded and produced lidar, competing with Verdun, Luminar and other companies to provide three-dimensional views of roads for self-driving cars.
The founders of Aeva, Soloisserian (left) and Mina Rezke, founded Aeva after they left Apple on 20 17.
In an interview with Forbes, Fato said: "We are skeptical about how many lidar companies there are at present. After meeting for the first time, we realized that this is a completely different business-an emotional company that focuses on outside the automotive field. "
"This team comes from Apple, and it knows all about different consumers, consumer health and industrial applications, far beyond the automotive field, which really makes it unique." Fato said.
Lidar can provide very detailed 3D images, which makes it a key technology for autonomous vehicles to accurately observe the world, but its cost is relatively high, and it brings technical challenges in seamless integration with digital cameras and radar robots used in automobiles.
Compared with Lidar giants Verdun and Lumine, which also went public through special purpose acquisition, Aeva positioned its sensor as a "4D" system, integrating the lidar function into a single silicon chip, but it can also measure the speed.
Aeva has integrated the key functions of its lidar sensor into a single silicon chip.
Aeva's system does not determine the distance and depth by emitting a laser beam, but emits a continuous, low-power laser beam to measure the frequency change of the reflected wave of the object. Co-founder Solothy Serian said that this method provides better data than traditional lidar and will not interfere with other sensors.
Aeva's sensors can also detect the speed of distant objects and help distinguish pedestrians from stationary objects.
"We actually measure speed very similar to radar. With speed, we can get that the maximum range of each point or pixel is 300 or 400. We will make it accurate to cm/s, which will fundamentally change the way you look at perception. " He said.
"It's like your camera changed from black and white to color. Everything has changed for your understanding of the world. When you have a new dimension of measuring ability, everything changes. This is exactly what we provide. "
Aeva's laser sensor combines the traditional lidar function with radar and computer vision.
According to PitchBook, the company raised more than $654.38 billion before it announced its listing. Through the sale of new shares and funds related to InterPrivate merger, its valuation will reach about $265.438+0 billion. After the merger, Aeva will receive more than $300 million in cash injection to develop sensors for mobile phones, tablets and other consumer devices.
Celean said that Aeva has reached a business partnership with Porsche and component giant ZF so far, and more transactions may be disclosed soon. This year's revenue will be in the range of "millions of dollars", but with the start of commercial supply agreements, it will rise to 800 million dollars per year by 2025.
Aeva cooperated with Audi's automatic intelligent driving department in 20 19 to provide sensors for passenger cars, and this year it also formed a production alliance with ZF.
Aeva said that their sensors do not rely on powerful lasers or foreign materials, which helps to reduce the cost and size of equipment.
Smaller chips help to reduce the cost and size of equipment.
Serena said that the single unit of Aeva sensor is slightly larger than a deck of playing cards, and the price is "several hundred dollars". Although automotive applications were the focus of Aeva's early attention, it increasingly hopes to cooperate with consumer technology and health care companies that need biometric data tools.
"When we say that the vehicle travels hundreds of meters, we can measure the speed of cm/s, but the same chip-level technology can measure micron-level accuracy with smaller driving distance but increased processing power." He said, "This means measuring vibration."
For example, if you put an Aeva sensor on someone's skin, "we will begin to understand biological characteristics, such as typical things such as heart rate, and perhaps more complicated things, such as arteriosclerosis, over time."
This information will be collected from the sensor beam, not through the device connected to the body. "As far as I know, we are the only company that can provide this unique chip lidar technology, which can measure high-range performance and can be applied to consumers," Serena said. But he did not point out potential new partners.
Aeva lidar will also be used in fields other than automobiles.
"We hope Aeva can be used not only for highly assisted or autonomous vehicles, but also for many applications." He said.
More and more devices, such as Apple's new iPad? Pro and iPhone? 12? Pro is equipped with lidar sensors to help realize applications such as augmented reality (ar), in which digital content is covered in the real world.
However, at present, the effective range of lidar sensors in consumer equipment is about 5 meters. He said that Aeva believes that it can develop sensors with an effective range of 30 meters or more by 2024. The company hopes to reduce the cost of sensors to about 10 USD.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.