Building Lidar Sensors for Anyone Thinking about Lidar Sensors
Since we launched the OS1 a little over a year ago, we have been working around the clock to bring 3D sensing to every engineer who needs high-performance lidar. This week, we want to share five major milestones along this journey:
- We have over 400 customers deploying Ouster sensors
- Our team has grown to over 100 employees
- We added $60 million in funding
- We opened a new high-capacity manufacturing facility
- Susan Heystee has joined our board of directors
400+ Customers and Growing
First off, and most importantly, we want to say thank you to all of our customers and partners who decided to give us a shot and have gotten us to this milestone. Moving to a new sensor platform always has some uncertainty – will the sensor work as advertised? Will it be reliable? Will the software work seamlessly with my stack? Will the platform and technology scale with my needs? We deeply appreciate you all moving forward with us despite these questions, and we’re thrilled with the positive feedback we have been getting in all of these areas. We are humbled and proud to have our products powering autonomous vehicles, robots, mapping rigs, drones, and much more at 400 different companies and universities, representing 15 different industries, in close to 50 countries around the world. Although each industry and project has unique requirements, our multi-beam flash lidar technology is proving itself across many different applications.
For the rest of 2019 we are looking forward to bringing the benefits of our smaller, lighter, more durable sensors to many more customers across the world.
Expanding to Over 100 Employees
What started as a 4-person team working in a tiny warehouse three years ago has grown to over 100 full-time employees across engineering, operations, and business teams. We expect to roughly double our headcount in the coming year to support further product line development for the OS1 and OS2 (and other products we look forward to announcing soon) to meet the global demand for our high-performance lidar sensors. A highlight of our recent additions is Myra Pasek, the former Associate General Counsel of Tesla and General Counsel of Impossible Foods, who is joining us as our General Counsel. Myra has deep global experience and a strong track record in building a high performance legal function for technology companies large and small, and we feel lucky to have her on board.
If you’re interested in joining, please check out our open positions.
$60 Million in Funding
To keep pace with our rapid product development and demand for our sensors, we’ve taken in $60 million in debt and equity funding from new and existing backers. We’re using this money to expand our production capabilities and develop new products, like the new OS1-128.
Opening a New Manufacturing Facility
We’re very excited to announce the opening of a new manufacturing facility at our headquarters in San Francisco. The facility includes space for nearly a hundred manufacturing staff, reliability testing and quality assurance equipment, and sensor calibration technology. The manufacturing facility will have the capacity to assemble, calibrate, and ship several thousand units per month toward the end of 2019.
Susan Heystee Joining the Board of Directors
We are especially excited about the appointment of Susan Heystee to our Board of Directors. Susan brings her expertise in the technology, automotive, and fleet sectors to help guide us through scaling the company, refining our sales and marketing strategy, and structuring our company for the next stages of our journey.
Susan most recently served as Senior Vice President of Verizon’s Global Automotive business. Prior to joining Verizon, she was the Executive Vice President of Sales at Telogis (acquired by Verizon), a company providing location technology solutions for fleet and mobile workforce management.
In her own words:
“I’m thankful for the opportunity to share my expertise and skills with the leading lidar company poised for growth and one highly focused on bringing 3D sensing to the masses.”
Onward
As we reflect on these milestones this week, we again cannot thank our customers enough. It’s incredible to know that over 400 engineering teams and university labs across the world are using our sensors to re-shape old industries and build entirely new ones. Seeing the incredible projects our customers are building motivates us every day to keep delivering for each and every one of you.
