Lidar-maker Luminar files for bankruptcy
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Lidar company Luminar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after months of layoffs, executive departures, and a legal fight with its largest customer, Volvo. The company aims to sell off its lidar business during the bankruptcy proceeding, and has already reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary. While the company will continue to operate during the bankruptcy process to “minimize disruptions” for its suppliers and customers, Luminar will eventually cease to exist once it’s completed. “After a comprehensive review of our alternatives, the board determined that a court-supervised sale process is the best path forward,” Paul Ricci, Luminar’s CEO said in a statement. “As we navigate this process, our top priority is to continue delivering the same quality, reliability and service our customers have come to expect from us.” The bankruptcy case, filed in the Southern District of Texas on Monday morning, comes at the end of a tumultuous year for a company that was valued at more than $3 billion when it went public in a reverse merger in 2020. Luminar founder Austin Russell abruptly resigned from the CEO role in May following a “code of business conduct and ethics inquiry,” though he remained on the company’s board. In October, he launched a new effort called Russell AI Labs and made a bid to buy Luminar outright. (It’s unclear if Russell plans to pursue the lidar assets in the bankruptcy case; representatives for the former CEO did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) The company, meanwhile, cut 25% of its workforce — its second layoff of the year. Luminar’s chief financial officer left the company, the company defaulted on a number of loans, and the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation. Luminar was also hit with an eviction lawsuit in October at one office and it exited a lease on another in November. Techcrunch event Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 WAITLIST NOW Another big blow came in November when Volvo, an early backer of Luminar and its largest customer heading into this year, canceled a five-year-old contract with the lidar-maker. Luminar said it has taken legal action against Volvo over the dissolution, but it has also been hit with its own legal claim from the contract manufacturer that actually made the lidar sensors. Luminar is claiming to have between $100 million and $500 million in assets and between $500 million and $1 billion in liabilities, according to the bankruptcy filings. Among those liabilities is a $10 million debt owed to Scale AI, which was helping Luminar with data labeling. Luminar also owes more than $1 million to AI software company Applied Intuition. Topics autonomous vehicles, Lidar, Luminar, Transportation Sean O'Kane Sr. Reporter, Transportation Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane. You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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