Ouster, Inc., a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors for the industrial automation, smart infrastructure, robotics, and automotive industries, and Colonnade Acquisition Corp. , a special purpose acquisition company, have announced their entry into a definitive merger agreement.
The capital from the business combination, combined with Colonnade’s expertise, is expected to be used to advance the development and manufacturing of Ouster’s high-performance digital lidar sensors to accelerate digital lidar’s adoption and rapid scale across key end markets. Ouster’s substantial customer base, proven track record across several industry use cases, and established manufacturing footprint and supply chain position the company for rapid expansion.
Ouster Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Angus Pacala said, “Ouster is powering the vision for an autonomous future where lidar-powered solutions are ubiquitous and built into every part of the industrial economy. We have established a strong business with a disruptive digital lidar technology, a diversified customer base, and global manufacturing and supply chain capabilities that are scaling toward high volume production. We believe the combination with Colonnade will enable us to further accelerate the adoption of our proven technology across multiple end markets and realize a safer, smarter, more efficient future.”
Colonnade Chief Executive Officer Remy W. Trafelet said, “We are excited to partner with Ouster to drive the next phase of its growth. As an innovation-driven lidar company, Ouster is led by an experienced management team with deep technical knowledge and strong business momentum. Since inventing their digital lidar in 2015, Ouster has revolutionized lidar technology, creating a digital solution that we believe is capable of disrupting the existing analog solutions in the market. Ouster is well-positioned for significant growth opportunities given its proven business model, flexible suite of products, and rapidly expanding target markets. We expect that the combination will allow us to drive significant value creation by participating in such a dynamic and high-demand sector.”
Ouster is a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors that give advanced 3D vision to robots, vehicles, and fixed infrastructure assets, allowing each to understand and visualize the surrounding world, and enabling safe autonomy. With its patented digital lidar technology, Ouster designs and manufactures sensors that it believes are the highest performing, lowest cost lidar solution available today across each of its four target markets: 1) industrial automation; 2) smart infrastructure; 3) robotics; and 4) automotive.
Angus Pacala and Mark Frichtl founded Ouster with a vision that, with the right combination of lower prices and higher performance, lidar would become ubiquitous and make the world smarter, safer, and more efficient, like other sensor technologies before it. This vision required rethinking the architecture behind high-performance lidar with an explicit focus on manufacturability and affordability. Their work resulted in the invention of Ouster’s high-performance digital lidar, based on custom-designed semiconductors and optical innovations, which they brought to market in 2018.
Ouster’s digital lidar now allows for low-cost customization that enables broad industry applications while maintaining a streamlined manufacturing process designed for scalability. With over 75 combinations of range, field of view, and resolution configurations, Ouster has one of the most complete lineups of lidar sensors on the market today. Its sensors are currently used by hundreds of customers globally, providing vision to autonomous vehicles and robots in applications ranging from mining and construction to cars and trucks, to smart city infrastructure.