Ouster designs and sells digital CMOS-based lidar sensors that print lasers and photodetectors onto chips to reduce complexity, improve reliability, and lower cost compared with legacy analog designs. The company launched a second-generation 128-beam product line in January with three models (urban/warehouse, a 120m mid-range with 45° FOV, and a long-range >200m unit); all three are shipping in some of 50 available configurations. Ouster sells into a wide set of markets beyond automakers, including robotics, drones, mapping, defense, building security, mining and agriculture, and reports about 800 customers across 15 markets (customers include Konecranes, Postmates, May Mobility, Kodiak Robotics, the U.S. Army, NASA, Stanford and MIT). Ouster has expanded globally with offices in Paris, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Suzhou and uses a San Francisco facility for low-volume product introduction while Benchmark in Southeast Asia handles higher-volume production. The company said 12-month revenue grew 62% and third-quarter bookings were up 209% year-over-year. Ouster has taken steps during COVID-19 (a 10% headcount reduction and temporary factory shutdown) but continued to increase sales and fully paid employees and temps while avoiding further layoffs. Ouster develops digital lidar sensors (OS-1 and OS-2 product lines) with resolutions from 16 to 128 channels and has launched the OS-1 128 sensor. The company sells sensors across industries including robotics, drones, mapping, defense, building security, mining and agriculture, and reports about 400 customers across 15 industries. Ouster has grown to more than 100 employees and expects to nearly double headcount to support further product development. The startup opened a new factory that currently produces hundreds of sensors per month and aims to assemble and ship several thousand sensors a month by the end of 2019; at full capacity the facility could produce $25 million to $50 million in inventory per month. Ouster is led by Angus Pacala and recently added Susan Heystee to its board. Ouster develops affordable, production-ready LiDAR sensors aimed at supporting autonomous and consumer vehicles. Its first product, the 64-channel OS1, is shipping now and is priced at $12,000. The company says the OS1 is dramatically lighter, smaller, and uses less power than competitors' sensors. Ouster emphasizes design for manufacturability as well as technology to lower cost while maintaining performance. It is planning an aggressive manufacturing ramp—targeting 1,000 units per month in January and 10,000 per month by the end of June. The long-term vision is to move LiDAR from a research product into every consumer automobile.

Total raised

$129M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Sep 2020