Cepton raises $100M for LiDAR sensors

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Cepton’s Helius smart LiDAR system. | Source: Cepton

Cepton, a Silicon Valley-based developer of LiDAR products, has raised $100 million from Koito Manufacturing Co., its automotive Tier 1 partner and current shareholder.

The investment comes in the form of convertible preferred stock and was approved during a special meeting of Cepton stockholders. The investment will be convertible starting on the first anniversary of the issue date and can be converted into shares of Capton’s common stock at an initial conversion price of $2.585 per share.

Cepton offers a range of LiDAR products that include the Vista-X family of automotive-grade LiDARs and its Sora-X family of industrial-grade LiDARs. The company also offers a smart LiDAR system called Helius. Helius combines Ception’s LiDAR technology with edge computing and perception software to provide 3D perception. It can be used for smart cities, smart spaces and other applications to provide object detection, tracking and classification.

“We’re happy to announce the closing of the preferred stock investment as we deepen our partnership with Koito,” said Cepton co-founder Jun Pei. “We plan to deploy the additional capital to help fund our next stage of growth, continue series production execution, and expand our collaboration efforts towards winning additional automotive OEM programs.”

Cepton was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. The company also has a presence in Germany, Canada, Japan, India and China. With the latest round of funding, Cepton has raised over $270 million, according to Crunchbase. 

Koito has been working in automotive lighting since it started in 1915. The Koito Group consists of 31 companies spread across 13 countries worldwide.

“We’re excited to have completed our third investment in Cepton, which solidifies our commitment to lidar and increasing automotive safety for drivers worldwide,” said Koiot president Michiaki Kato. “This is an important year for us as we work towards commercialization and scale manufacturing of our LiDAR products. We have a strong track record with Cepton as a partner and look forward to achieving our mutual goal of becoming the leader within LiDAR.”