Pursuant to the business combination, GRAF will acquire Velodyne through a reverse merger, with Velodyne having an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion and an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion.
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The field of lidar ushered in the first listed stock.
Just now, lidar technology company Velodyne announced that the company will merge with Graf Industries. The merged company will remain on the New York Stock Exchange and trade under the new stock code VLDR.
In this regard, Velodyne became a wholly-owned subsidiary of GRAF, and the market value of the combined company was approximately US$1.8 billion.
The transaction is supported by a committed $150 million PIPE and is expected to leave approximately $200 million in cash on Velodyne's balance sheet.
Velodyne said, “The net proceeds from the merger will remain primarily on the balance sheet to enhance financial flexibility, support growth and fund selective acquisition opportunities to further expand market leadership. ."
After the two companies merge, David Hall will continue to serve as executive chairman of Velodyne, and CEO Anand Gopalan and Chief Financial Officer Drew Hamer will lead and manage the business together with Hall.
David Hall, founder and executive chairman of Velodyne, said: "Lidar technology is critical for machines to perceive the world and make safe decisions. Velodyne has the key technology to enable the development of the era of self-driving machines."
Velodyne CEO Anand Gopalan said: "Partnering with Graf Industrial will provide the opportunity to strengthen our leading position in the global lidar and sensor market and create new and exciting products for our customers and employees. Excited about the opportunity. We remain focused on executing our strategic plan to achieve strong and orderly growth while delivering strong returns through prudent capital management."
Michael? Dee said: “Now that Velodyne is able to reduce costs, we will not see – and insurance companies will not require – every vehicle to use a lidar system to ensure safety through continuous improvement of the manufacturing process. We also believe that the company’s differentiation The company's comprehensive and scalable operating platform makes the economic prospects of a selective merger very attractive."
Under the business combination, GRAF will acquire Velodyne through a reverse merger with an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion. Valued at approximately US$1.8 billion.
The transaction will be funded by:
The issuance of new common shares of GRAF to current holders of Velodyne securities ("Velodyne Holders") (the rollover interest) About $1.5 billion.
Cash from GRAF trust account (up to approximately $117 million).
Cash received from a group of new institutional investors as well as certain existing GRAF shareholders at $10 per share in a $150 million PIPE.
Assuming no redemption of GRAF public shares, Velodyne's existing shareholders will immediately hold approximately 83% of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock upon completion of the merger.
GRAF Founder Group will retain 2,300,000 founder shares at the closing of the transaction if the closing price of the combined company's common stock on the New York Stock Exchange is from the date of the merger to the closing of the merger. Additional shares of the combined company's stock will be issued to Velodyne holders as additional shares of the Company's stock for 20 days of any 30-day period of at least $15.00 as of the six-month date, and the GRAF sponsor will retain the additional shares of stock. of 275,000 shares.
GRAF Sponsor will forfeit any consideration and surrender all of its approximately 14.2 million private placement warrants at closing.
The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of GRAF and Velodyne and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020.
The transaction is subject to approval by shareholders of GRAF and Velodyne, and is subject to conditions of at least US$200 million upon completion.
Cash is available from PIPE and GRAF's trust accounts, including at least $50 million of cash remaining in GRAF's trust account.
GRAF shareholders must also extend GRAF’s deadline to complete the business combination by July 31, 2020, and GRAF filed a preliminary proxy statement with the SEC on June 26, 2020.
Velodyne will become a publicly traded company after a period of consolidation throughout the autonomous vehicle industry.
As a leader in the lidar market, Velodyne serves more than 300 customers, including nearly all of the world's leading automotive OEMs.
It has booked more than $500 million in revenue since inception, with projected revenue under existing customer contracts expected to exceed $800 million from 2020 to 2024.
Velodyne expects to generate approximately $100 million in revenue in 2020, rising to approximately $680 million in 2024, while existing contracts are expected to drive less than 50% of estimates in 2022 EBITDA and free cash flow will be positive.
In 2005, David Hall, the founder of Velodyne, invented the real-time surround-view lidar system. Hall's invention revolutionized the perception of autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance systems, as well as new mobility, maps Drawing, robotics and security applications.
In 2015, Velodyne separated from Velodyne Acoustics and focused on the development of lidar technology.
Entering 2019, it has become Velodyne’s fastest growing year.
In July 2019, Velodyne announced that it had acquired mapping and localization software and intellectual property assets from Mapper.ai.
Mapper technology will allow Velodyne to accelerate the development of Vella?, the breakthrough software that builds its directional view Velarray? lidar sensor.
Mapper’s entire leadership and engineering team will join Velodyne to support the company’s large and growing software development team. The new talent will expand the software team of engineers currently working on Vella software, which will Accelerate production of Velodyne’s powerful ADAS solutions.
On November 19, Velodyne announced the official launch of Alpha Prime, a new generation of lidar sensor that leverages Velodyne’s patented surround-view technology to provide the highest overall performance in the autonomous driving industry in one sensor. Specification. The sensor is an unrivaled solution in perception, field of view and range for autonomous markets including transportation, trucking and robotics.
In April 2020, Velodyne Lidar announced a three-year agreement with EasyMile, a global leader in autonomous technology and intelligent vehicle solutions. EasyMile? uses Velodyne lidar sensors in the production of its EZ10 autonomous passenger shuttle and deploys them on public and private roads in more than 30 countries around the world.
On May 29, Velodyne expanded its partnership and included Idriverplus into the Velodyne automation integrated system ecosystem. Through this program, Velodyne will further cooperate with Idriverplus to support its continued innovation and promote Idriverplus automation. Drive cars including street cleaners, passenger cars and logistics vehicles.
On June 16, Velodyne reached a multi-year cooperation agreement with Outsight, a leading innovator in smart city surveillance.
Outsight uses Velodyne Lidar sensing technology in its 3D semantic camera system, which helps businesses and governments improve the analysis and management of people movement and assets in crowded environments.
Today, Velodyne offers a high-performance product line with a broad range of sensing solutions, including the cost-effective Puck?, the versatile Ultra? Puck?, the self-propelled Alpha? Prime?, ADAS Optimized Velarray? and for driver assistance, Vella?.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.