Lidar Startups Scramble to Raise Cash, Find Buyers

It’s going to be a busy holiday season for some investment bankers. Anyone with expertise in mobility tech firms, such as electric vehicles or lidar tech for autonomous vehicles, is flooded with work right now.

With funding drying up, cash-burning startups are scrambling to find buyers, either by hiring banks to run official processes or by contacting rival executives and investors more informally over the phone, industry executives say. Several of the startups are in the lidar sector, laser scanner technology used in self-driving cars that enables a car to “see” its surroundings.

The startups include Baraja, an Australian-based maker of lidar technology for autonomous cars last valued privately at $150 million. Baraja has hired investment bank Lincoln International LLC to find a strategic investor, the startup’s CEO, Federico Collarte, confirmed in an interview. Lincoln did not respond to a request for comment.