Luminar lines up a $22 million bidder for its lidar business

Luminar already reach an agreement to sell the lidar business to a company called Quantum Computing Inc. for only $22 million, unless it receives a higher offer by the deadline at 17:00 CT on Friday.

The lidar maker, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, has announced plans to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc for $110 million. The deal must be approved by a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas before it can be finalized.

Luminar founder and former CEO Austin Russell had signaled interest in submitting a bid for the lidar assets and attempted to buy the entire company in October, before filing for bankruptcy. The company is now trying serving him with tepa for the information stored on the cell phone, as Luminar evaluates whether it wants to make any legal claims against it related to the Board-run ethical inquiry that led to the resignation last May. It is unknown how many other offers Luminar can receive by the deadline.

Quantum Computing Inc. has been defined as a “stalking horse bidder,” which helps establish a baseline for asset value and helps prevent football bids. Luminar said it wants to move quickly through the bankruptcy case, as its biggest creditors – mostly financial institutions that have lent the company money over the past few years – are helping to finance the process.

Although Luminar received a higher bid, the stalking horse bid represented a monumental downfall from the company. peak market capitalization in 2021, when it will be worth about $11 billion. The price is fueled by the promise that Luminar’s lidar sensor will be widely adopted by major automakers like Volvo, which at one point planned to buy more than 1 million before its end. walk away from the deal in 2025. Other deals with Mercedes-Benz and Polestar fell through the cracks.

Quantum Computing Inc. founded in 2001 as a company called Ticketcart that sells ink-jet cartridges, according to his filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It bought a beverage company in 2007, through the process of restructuring itself ten years later, and pivoted to create optical technology for the budding world of quantum computing. The company generated more than $700 million by selling shares in 2025although revenue for the first nine months of last year was only $384,000.