Self-driving sensor startup Innoviz's shares rise on public debut
06/04/2021 21:26
By Stephen Nellis
April 6 (Reuters) - Shares of self-driving car sensor
startup Innoviz INVZ.O rose on Tuesday, on its first day
trading as public company.
The Tel Aviv, Israel-based firm is developing a lidar
sensor, which helps self-driving vehicles gain a
three-dimensional view of the road. The company has a
partnership with BMW BMWG.DE to sell the automaker its first
generation of sensors, which cost around $1,000. Innoviz is
working on a second generation sensor which it hopes to sell for
less than $500.
Shares rose 6.7% to $10.40 near the end of the company's
first day trading on the NASDAQ.
Innoviz became public on Tuesday after completing a merger
with publicly listed blank-check firm Collective Growth
Corporation Corp CGRO.O that raised $371 million. Four other
lidar firms - Velodyne Lidar Inc VLDR.O , Luminar Technologies
Inc LAZR.O , Aeva Technologies Inc AEVA.N and Ouster Inc
OUST.N - have all become public in recent months. Rival AEye
Inc also plans to become public via a merger with CF Acquisition
III Corp CFAC.O .
"What we need to now is a lot of engineering to compress
everything" in the Innoviz sensor into a smaller package for
automakers, Chief Executive Omer Keilaf told Reuters on Tuesday.
Lidar sends out laser beams and detects their reflection off
faraway objects to determine how far away they are, similar to
how radar systems use radio or microwave frequencies.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by David Gregorio)
((Stephen.Nellis@thomsonreuters.com; (415) 344-4934;))