Volvo Cars, Corning and Cornes-backed lidar technology developer Luminar is merging with a special purpose acquisition vehicle to form a company with an expected $3.4bn valuation.

Luminar, a US-based automotive lidar technology developer backed by corporates Corning, Cornes and Volvo Cars, agreed to a reverse merger yesterday with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Gores Metropoulos.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020 and includes $400m in cash held by Gores Metropolous, which floated in a $375m initial public offering in February 2019. Luminar will take the SPAC’s Nasdaq listing and is expected to have a market capitalisation of about $3.4bn.

The…

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.