Ouster, Inc.: Form 10-K for the period ended Dec 31, 2024

Overview

Ouster, Inc. is building the eyes of autonomy. We are a leading global provider of lidar sensors and solutions for the automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure industries. Ouster’s products include high-resolution scanning and solid-state digital lidar sensors, analog lidar sensors, and software solutions.

We anticipate that 3D vision technologies, coupled with artificial intelligence, will power autonomy that in turn will fundamentally disrupt business models across many existing industries and enable entirely new industries and capabilities. We believe that our digital lidar sensors are one of the highest performing, lowest cost solutions available today, which we believe positions us at the center of a global revolution in autonomy.

Our four target markets each have unique use cases for our lidar sensors:

• Automotive. The automotive industry is shifting towards advanced/enhanced safety and autonomy features, in part powered by lidar. We believe we are uniquely positioned to support this transformation. We work with companies across the entire automotive ecosystem, from technology providers to direct automotive parts suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), to design and manufacture lidar sensors for these advanced vehicle systems.
• Industrial. Our industrial customers use our lidar sensors to increase safety and automate operations across the global supply chain. This includes material handling vehicles at ports and warehouses, off-highway vehicles in mines and on farms, and manufacturing equipment in factories.
• Robotics. Our robotics customers are pioneering an automated future that can affect many aspects of our daily lives as they take on tasks that are redundant, cumbersome, expensive or dangerous for humans.
• Smart infrastructure. Our smart infrastructure customers are in both the public and private sectors. Cities are prioritizing safety and efficiency through the use of lidar technology on roads and sidewalks in public spaces. We believe our products can enhance public welfare through security and smart city applications. Security companies are also looking to improve intrusion detection and tracking by augmenting existing closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems with the spatial tracking capabilities of lidar.

We believe these markets present a significant growth opportunity for us.

We envision a future where our digital technology enables lidar to become universal, empowering 3D perception capabilities within robots, cars, trucks, and drones, as well as factories, warehouses, roads, sidewalks, public spaces, retail stores, stadiums, docks, and airport terminals. We believe our patented digital approach to lidar and our ongoing development of perception, analytics, mapping, and localization software will better position us in this changing environment.

We believe the simplicity of our digital lidar design gives us meaningful cost advantages in manufacturing, supply chain, and production yields. Our main manufacturing partners are Benchmark Electronics, Inc. (“Benchmark”) and Fabrinet. Benchmark and Fabrinet manufacture the majority of our products, which we expect will reduce our product costs and allow us to rapidly scale production to meet our anticipated product demand. Based on cost quotes for our products in mass production, we anticipate our manufacturing costs per unit will decrease as production volumes increase.

Our mission to make the physical world safer and more efficient is aligned with our focus on sustainability now and into the future. We believe that our lidar technology is a key enabler of sustainable solutions, empowering our customers to achieve greater levels of automation, which have been shown to have the potential to significantly reduce global carbon dioxide emissions and help curb the effects of climate change. Likewise, smart city initiatives powered by lidar can better manage traffic, reduce commute times, and further reduce emissions.

Intellectual Property

We believe our success, competitive advantages, and growth prospects depend in part upon our ability to develop and protect our core technology and intellectual property. Since our inception, we have heavily invested in our patent portfolio by pursuing comprehensive coverage of invention families, use cases, and international coverage. Being at the forefront of innovation in the lidar market depends in part on our ability to obtain and maintain patents and other proprietary rights relating to our key technology, and our ability to successfully enforce these rights against third parties. We currently have proprietary intellectual property for both our digital and analog products and solutions, including in our software, real-time 3D vision for autonomous systems, manufacturing processes and calibration methodology. We have also filed patents and trademark applications in order to further secure these rights and strengthen our ability to defend against third parties who may infringe on our rights. We also rely on trade secrets, design and manufacturing know-how, and continuing technological innovations to maintain and improve our competitive position.

As a result, we have built a portfolio of intellectual property, including issued patents and registered trademarks, copyrights, confidential technical information, and expertise in the development of lidar technology and software.

We protect our proprietary rights through agreements with our commercial partners, supply chain vendors, employees, and consultants, and by closely monitoring the developments and products in the industry; and in addition to seeking patent protection covering inventions originating from us, we continually evaluate opportunities to acquire or in-license patents to the extent we believe such patents are useful or relevant to our business. By leveraging our deep knowledge of lidar technology, we have invented and patented an integrated, semiconductor-based lidar technology, which for our digital products consists of the following key features:

Patented digital lidar architecture

Our patents contain a broad range of claims related to devices and methods for implementing digital lidar, among other things. Our patents cover our micro-optic technology that enables improved digital lidar performance; our digital lidar architecture combining vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (“VCSEL”) and single photon avalanche diodes (“SPAD”); our data processing circuits for in-silicon digital signal processing; and our lidar-camera convergence, combining active and passive sensing technologies.

Custom system-on-a-chip (“SoC”) with SPAD detectors

Our sensors contain a custom-designed SoC that replaces the functionality of hundreds of discrete analog components and integrates those capabilities onto a single complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (“CMOS”) chip.

In our Ouster Sensor (“OS”) product line, we are currently on our “L3” generation of SoC, which combines significant processing power with a 128-channel SPAD array onto a single piece of silicon and powers all of our REV7 products. Our SoC is capable of counting individual photons in order to detect very weak laser light pulses from long range targets. This digital SPAD-based approach enables our OS sensors to be compact, high-performance, and low-cost in order to provide advanced autonomy functionality to our industrial, robotics, smart infrastructure, and automotive customers.

Our Digital Flash (“DF”) lidar is under development and utilizes our first generation CMOS SoC for solid-state sensors. In 2021, we announced our second generation DF SoC, “Chronos”. Powered by this chip, the solid-state DF lidar features short, medium, and long-range sensing options that we believe has the potential to meet the performance, reliability, design, and cost requirements of global industrial and automotive OEMs.

Vertical cavity surface emitting laser array

Paired with our digital SPAD SoC is an array of VCSELs. By using VCSEL technology, we can place our laser emitters into a dense array. This dense, compact approach enables us to increase our resolution without increasing the size or complexity of our sensors.

Patented micro-optical system

In addition to our detector SoC and VCSEL array, our sensors feature patented micro-optical systems that enhance the performance of both our emitters and detectors. The combined effect of these micro-optical systems on sensor performance is equivalent to an increase in detector efficiency of multiple orders of magnitude.

Embedded software

Our existing embedded software is field-upgradeable, which enables us to customize and improve our sensors’ capabilities. We believe that the flexibility of this existing embedded software, together with embedded software that we develop in the future, will create an avenue for software-based enhancements of performance and customization of our products that will be capable of addressing myriad end-market customers’ specific technical requirements.

We believe these technology breakthroughs are central to our competitive advantage and dramatically improve sensor performance.

Our Product Portfolio

Using an array of eye-safe lasers, our lidar solutions measure distances in the environment at the speed of light. Unlike camera-based solutions, lidar solutions allow machines to see in 3D by providing precise distance measurements of surrounding objects. Lidar also performs better than cameras in low light conditions and produces fewer errors. Compared to radar, lidar provides better resolution, perceiving objects’ shapes for superior object detection and classification. Lidar systems are designed to detect pedestrians equally well during daytime and nighttime conditions because the systems provide self-illumination by means of laser beams.

In October of 2021, Ouster acquired Sense Photonics, Inc. (“Sense”) a developer of solid-state flash lidar based on VCSEL and SPAD technology. This acquisition has supported the development of our DF sensor which leverages technology and engineering expertise from both companies. In February 2023, Ouster completed the merger (the “Velodyne Merger”) with Velodyne Lidar, Inc. (“Velodyne”) pursuant to the terms of the Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of November 4, 2022. As a result, we currently offer the OS and Velodyne scanning sensors and are developing the DF solid-state flash sensors.

OS Product line

Introduced in 2018, the OS product line is available in four different models to meet the needs of our end customers. The model options include the hemispheric field of view “OSDome”, the ultra-wide view “OS0,” the mid-range “OS1,” and the long-range “OS2.” Within each of these models, we offer numerous configuration options, including but not limited to different resolutions, connection standards, and data output structures. As we continue to release new generations of the silicon CMOS SoCs that power the OS product line, we expect the performance of our sensors to improve.

In 2022, we launched our REV7 OS series scanning sensors powered by our L3 chip. Compared to our earlier generation sensors, REV7 delivers double the range, enhanced object detection, increased precision and accuracy, and greater reliability.

DF Series

The DF series is a suite of short, mid, and long-range solid-state digital lidar sensors with superior reliability, durability, and affordability. The DF series is designed to meet automaker requirements and certifications for advanced driver assistance systems (“ADAS”) and autonomous driving, while seamlessly integrating into the vehicle architecture and design. The DF series is also suitable for non-ADAS use cases where a full 360 degree field of view is not required.

Its key features include high resolution, adaptability, and scalability.

High resolution. The patented breakthrough solid-state digital flash architecture produces high-resolution 3D point clouds.

Adaptability. The multi-sensor suite is a flexible platform that can be easily adapted to different form-factors and sensor configurations to provide varying ranges, fields of view, and vehicle design freedoms – all with a simple change in optics or housing.

Scalability. The solid-state DF series is designed to be highly manufacturable and to offer durability, reliability, and affordability. We expect to offer individual solid-state sensors as well as a multi-sensor lidar suite at a price point that we believe could enable broad adoption. We believe that we are well-positioned to deliver on OEM requirements with a single supplier offering, reducing overall costs and making us a preferred potential partner.

Velodyne product lines

We also offer certain surround-view lidar sensors that Velodyne previously marketed prior to the Velodyne Merger. These scanning lidar products include the VLP-16, VLP-16 Lite, VLP-16 Hi-Res, VLP-32, and VLS-128, and are in the final stages of their product lifecycle. We plan to stop manufacturing these products in 2025.

Ouster Gemini

Ouster Gemini is a perception platform designed for smart infrastructure deployments like security and crowd analytics, and is optimized exclusively for Ouster’s digital lidar sensors. The Gemini platform consists of OS series lidar sensors, edge processor hardware, perception software, and cloud analytics.

The Ouster Gemini platform provides people and object detection, classification, and tracking for actionable, intuitive, and customizable insights while preserving personally identifiable information. Gemini enables our customers to detect, classify, and track objects through a covered area which can be expanded by meshing lidar sensors together to form a single, cohesive 3D view. This approach has multiple advantages compared to other similar solutions and can be used to replace or enhance existing camera, radar, or RF beacon-based systems:

Detection accuracy. Gemini perception software is specifically optimized to take advantage of the rich and robust data provided by Ouster’s digital lidar sensors. The high resolution and improved range of our digital lidar sensors combined with a state of the art deep neural network based perception algorithms enhance the detection, classification, and tracking accuracy of the perception software.

Uninterrupted tracking. Gemini enables seamless tracking of objects across an entire area. Users can easily mesh multiple lidar sensors together within the Gemini software interface, allowing a seamless 3D view of object movement throughout the space.

Easy setup and administration. The simplicity of the Gemini platform, along with its intuitive user interface, enables customers to install, configure, and maintain the system with ease.

Privacy-preserving. Gemini does not output any personally identifiable information, allowing customers to deploy advanced monitoring systems in public or sensitive areas without privacy concerns.

BlueCity

BlueCity is a Gemini-powered solution for traffic operations, planning, and safety. BlueCity provides real-time data analytics and predictions, which can be used to improve traffic and crowd flow efficiency, improve urban planning, advance sustainability, and protect vulnerable road users in a wide range of weather and lighting conditions.

Improve flow efficiency. Connecting BlueCity’s intelligent solution to existing traffic controllers helps optimize signal timing and traffic and crowd flow based on real-time, multimodal traffic data. This can result in reduced traffic congestion, decreased vehicle delays, and maximized system capacity.

Improve urban planning. BlueCity can help improve mobility and urban growth management for all modes of transport with data-based decision-making insights on the volume, speed, and direction of pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.

Data analytics dashboard. BlueCity provides a user dashboard with actionable insights such as number of near misses, pedestrian crossing time estimates, illegal turn detection, and red-light violations.

Product Roadmap And Development

We continue to invest in growing our digital lidar product portfolio and increasing the capabilities of our software solutions.

We currently expect that our future digital lidar product developments will be primarily driven by improvements to our semiconductors—the receiver SoC and VCSEL laser array— with little to no impact on the designs or architecture of our sensors.

Our digital lidar product roadmap primarily consists of designing, building, and integrating improved semiconductors into the OS product line, which we anticipate will improve the range and resolution of our sensors, among other features, without substantial changes to the form factor of our sensors.

We have manufactured prototypes of our DF sensors for the automotive ADAS market. The DF series is also suitable for non-ADAS use cases where a full 360 degree field of view is not required. After the initial release, we anticipate our DF sensors will improve in performance over time as we improve our core SoC and laser components.

Our software solutions include BlueCity for intelligent transportation systems, and Ouster Gemini for security, logistics automation, and crowd monitoring. We continue to work to improve the performance and expand the capabilities of these platforms through our artificial intelligence perception software and application-specific integrations, analytics, and dashboards.

Our Customers

We target four markets globally: automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure. For the year ended December 31, 2024, one customer accounted for more than 10% of our revenue from product sales.

Automotive

Our customers in the automotive industry fall into two categories: customers developing various forms of self-driving technology for driverless mobility and freight applications, and customers developing consumer ADAS. Both groups are generally engaged in the design, production, manufacture, operation, or after-market modification of automobiles, which includes consumer and commercial vehicles, commercial heavy trucks, and buses among other vehicles. Automotive customers use lidar as a core component in ADAS and for autonomous driving. We believe that our automotive customers value the high resolution, high reliability, and cost of our lidar technology.

Industrial Automation

Our customers in the industrial market are generally engaged in the manufacturing, operation, or after-market modification of heavy industrial machinery, which includes automated guided vehicles (“AGVs”), autonomous mobile robots (“AMRs”), mining vehicles, large material handling vehicles such as forklifts, construction vehicles, agricultural vehicles, and port machinery among other machines. Lidar is used on heavy machinery to enable autonomous usage of the machinery and to improve worker safety. We believe that our industrial customers value the high resolution, range, small form factor, and high reliability of our digital lidar sensors.

Robotics

Our customers in the robotics industry are generally engaged in the design, production, operation, or after-market modification of small mobile human-less vehicles, which includes wheeled robots, legged robots, and drones among other vehicles. Our customers in the robotics market include both commercial entities and nonprofit entities, such as research institutions. Our customers in the robotics market are installing lidar sensors for autonomous navigation, collision avoidance, and mapping in order to provide services such as last-mile delivery, street sweeping, and asset inspection. We believe our robotics customers value the high resolution, precision, wide vertical field-of-view, and high reliability of our lidar sensors.

Smart Infrastructure

Our customers in the smart infrastructure market are generally engaged in monitoring and analyzing human and vehicle movements for the purpose of providing building security and improving roadway safety and efficiency. This market includes federal, state, and local governments as well as private commercial businesses. Unlike traditional cameras, our lidar sensors provide accurate spatial data in low lighting conditions while safeguarding privacy concerns. We believe that our smart infrastructure customers value the high resolution, 360° horizontal field-of-view, and high reliability of our digital lidar sensors. Our lidar sensors and software solutions provide smart infrastructure customers the ability to detect, classify, and track people and vehicles through an easy to use software user interface, allowing them to interact with lidar data indirectly and in a task-relevant manner.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe the following strengths will allow us to maintain and extend our position as a leading provider in high-resolution lidar solutions.

Patented digital lidar technology

Since we invented and patented our digital lidar technology in 2015, we have launched a suite of products built on a shared architecture. Our proprietary SoC replaces hundreds to thousands of discrete components with a single, tightly-integrated, custom SPAD receiver array, and our high-efficiency VCSEL array integrates every laser into a single die. Moreover, our patented micro-optical system increases digital lidar performance by the equivalent of an orders-of-magnitude increase in detector efficiency. We believe that this architecture will allow us to continue to increase sensor performance while reducing its cost for many years to come. The Sense acquisition and the Velodyne Merger have enabled us to acquire additional intellectual property, which we believe will continue to distinguish us in the lidar space.

High performance at an affordable price

As we introduce future generations of our proprietary SoC, we expect to be able to offer improved resolution, range, precision, and reliability, and unlock new data types. Our simple digital architecture shared across our products has allowed for a single manufacturing process and common supply chain for all of our sensor models that we believe results in cost advantages that help us offer lower prices to our customers while maintaining gross margins.

Flexible and scalable product architecture

Our products employ a software-defined architecture, enabling low-cost development of new industry-specific applications, and a simple shared hardware architecture for scalable manufacturing.

Large and diversified customer base

We have diversified and strive to continue to diversify our customer base by growing our business in automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure, which we believe gives us key advantages. Our customer and market diversity add stability to our business and we are able to reduce our exposure to the risk of development delays or regulatory changes that may affect our sales to a single customer or in a particular market.

Volume manufacturing today

We designed our technology for high-volume manufacturing. At our San Francisco, California facility, we manufacture sensors, including new product introductions and Buy America and Buy American-compliant sensors. While we continue to manufacture certain sensors in San Francisco, the Company outsources higher volume product manufacturing to our manufacturing partners Benchmark and Fabrinet, both of which have manufacturing facilities in Thailand. We believe these relationships provide multiple benefits, including allowing us to reduce our operating costs and the ability to leverage our partners’ manufacturing capacity to quickly respond to changes in demand.

Digital solid-state technology positioned to capture high volume OEM opportunities

We expect that our prospective customers will select lidar suppliers primarily based on the anticipated ability to meet performance, reliability, design, and cost requirements. We believe that the solid-state digital lidar technology in our DF sensors will meet these requirements and lead to production wins and growth in this segment.

Highly reliable and rugged technology

In addition to high performance, comparatively low cost, and high customization flexibility, our sensors are designed to be highly reliable. We believe Ouster has one of the lowest field failure rates in the industry, which reduces the total cost of ownership of our sensors and we believe results in greater loyalty of our customers to our products.

Visionary management team

Innovation is central to our corporate culture. Ouster’s co-founders Angus Pacala and Mark Frichtl have over two decades of combined experience in lidar engineering. In collaboration with our seasoned executive management team, they drive our vision and corporate strategy. We believe that the digital lidar technology invented by our founders will continue to drive significant improvements in autonomous technology. As the Company has developed, we have built a strong supporting team, adding leaders in sales, marketing, operations, engineering, manufacturing, legal, and finance.

Our Growth Strategies

Our growth strategy is based upon three components: the attractive performance and cost economics of our digital lidar technology, accelerating adoption with our software solutions, and focused commercial execution.

Today, our digital lidar technology powers OS and DF sensors that are high performance, highly customizable, reliable, and cost competitive. As we continue to upgrade the SoCs powering our OS and DF sensors, we expect to improve the performance of our sensors without significant negative impact to sensor cost or form factor. We plan to leverage this dynamic to grow our sensor sales by steadily improving our product performance while consistently maintaining a competitive price point.

We believe our software solutions for multiple end markets present a significant growth opportunity. For existing lidar users, software has the potential to decrease development time and improve system performance. For customers who historically rely on other sensor modalities or lack technical expertise, the introduction of software such as Ouster Gemini can catalyze the adoption of lidar by lowering the engineering resources required to transform raw data into actionable insights.

In addition to our sensor and software growth opportunities, we believe we can increase our growth through commercial execution excellence. By building a commercial organization with highly-skilled employees and efficient processes and systems, we believe we can improve our customer acquisition, accelerate existing customer growth, increase sales through distribution networks, and build valuable strategic partnerships.

Key elements of our growth strategy include:

Execute on our product roadmap

We continue to place a priority on innovation and product development. We plan to continue improving our product performance and adding unique functionality while maintaining a competitive price point. We believe that improving our products at a consistently competitive price positions us to win new and expanded business opportunities in our target markets over time.

Grow sales volumes from existing accounts

We aim to create an established customer base in each of our four target markets that can be further strengthened as our relationships with customers mature. As our customers move through our pipeline from benchtop evaluation to pilot evaluation, to pre-production, and finally to production—we believe our order volumes will increase at each stage in the sales process. We expect that moving to series production can provide a material increase of up to several orders of magnitude in annual sales volume for a given customer program.

Commercialize digital lidar for emerging high volume OEM opportunities

We believe that our solid-state DF sensor will meet industry requirements for performance, cost, and reliability in high volume OEM applications. As development progresses, we will strive to build and maintain relationships with global OEMs and Tier 1s to further strengthen demand.

Expand our distribution network

While the majority of our sales are direct to customers, we also sell our sensors through a domestic and international distribution network, which has expanded as a result of the Velodyne Merger. We believe these distributors enable us to reach more end customers in an operationally efficient manner. We plan to grow our existing network and establish new distribution partnerships in regions where we do not currently have partnerships. By leveraging these relationships, we believe we will be able to reach more customers faster and rapidly grow our sales.

Expand our partner ecosystem

Effectively integrating and using a lidar sensor can be a complex task for some end customers. An ecosystem of value-added software and integrator companies is growing across the world, offering perception software and tailored solutions for our target markets. We have relationships with many of these companies, and have collaborated with some of them to develop software and services based on our sensors. We intend to further develop complementary solutions and integration services that we believe will provide potential customers with the requisite technical know-how and we expect that this will accelerate our sales growth.

Strengthen our worldwide sales and marketing presence

To further grow our market share in our target markets, we intend to opportunistically scale our commercial team to serve the needs of each end market. As our market presence grows through targeted sales and marketing activity, we believe our customer base will grow. In addition, we are increasingly cross-selling within accounts, accessing new projects and opportunities within accounts where we have a beachhead position and increasing the number of addressable opportunities.

Pursue strategic transactions

We have explored and may continue to explore strategic acquisitions, mergers or other transactions as a means to improve our competitive position. For example, in February 2023, we completed our merger of equals with Velodyne which helped us to strengthen our financial position, technology portfolio and software offering. While we see significant and growing demand for our products today, we believe selective transactions can create more expansive use cases for our products, provide greater access to target markets, improve our operating efficiency, or accelerate our product roadmap.

Manufacturing

Our San Francisco, California facility manufactures sensors, including new product introductions; Buy America and Buy American-compliant sensors. For higher volume manufacturing where we can leverage bigger companies’ resources, we have invested in relationships with key manufacturing partners Benchmark and Fabrinet. We have also invested a significant amount of time and resources in streamlining our production process. Our optical alignment processes are partially or completely automated, which reduces manufacturing time and increases our production output. Our sensors also undergo application-focused final testing, which allows us to understand the real-world performance of our sensors before they are shipped to customers. We continue to invest in building manufacturing process control systems, which provide real-time production information on the sensors produced at the facilities in Thailand and San Francisco through integrated data stores and dashboards. This streamlined production process aims at lowering manufacturing costs.

Competition

There is an increasing demand for lidar to help advance automated systems with the intended goal of increasing safety, improving efficiency and enhancing productivity. Lidar’s status as a critical sensor in many applications gives us the opportunity to add enhanced value to customers by providing comprehensive solutions. There is increasing adoption of lidar across a wide variety of industries. As a result, we compete against several companies developing lidar solutions for incorporation into these developing applications, some of which may be similar to ours. Our competitors may include and are not limited to: AEye, Aeva Inc., Cepton, Hesai Technology, Innoviz Technologies, Koito Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Luminar Technologies, MicroVision, Pepperl+Fuchs, Quanergy, RoboSense, Seyond, and SICK.

Additionally, some of our targeted customers may have their own internal lidar development programs. Our software products may also compete against companies that provide standalone software solutions. Although we believe our line of products and innovation support position us as a leader in the lidar market, we will continue to face competition from existing, established market competitors with greater resources and new companies developing lidar solutions.

Sales And Marketing

We maintain a global sales presence across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and Pacific markets. We sell directly to many of our customers and have also developed a global network of active distributors to sell, install, and support our solutions. Our commercial team is made up of experienced leaders who have been developing a focused sales organization geared towards ramping our sales pipeline. We continue to maintain a robust sales and marketing team to meet the demands of our existing customers and expect to expand our sales efforts to attract new customers. We plan to continue to expand and optimize our dealer network to ensure that we have sufficient geographic coverage across both existing and new markets.

We take a targeted marketing approach to each of our four focused markets. We develop and publish digital content designed to educate our audience on how to use Ouster’s products, and selectively use other channels and advertising methods to attract customers. We leverage opportunities to present and speak at market-specific conferences, executive events, trade shows and industry events to further develop our brand and reputation. These opportunities also allow us to showcase our technology and attract additional customer interest. Through customer feedback, industry events and strategic relationships, we continue to identify the evolving needs of our customers and, as a result, develop new and improved solutions. In addition, we have a robust social media presence and are investing in various digital marketing strategies and tools to further reach customers as well as build our brand. From time to time, we sponsor universities and other non-profit organizations to increase awareness of our technology and showcase its capabilities.

Research and Development

We have invested significant resources into research and development of our lidar-based technologies. We believe our ability to maintain a leadership position depends in part on our ongoing research and development activities.

Our research and development activities are primarily based in San Francisco, California; Ottawa, Canada; and Edinburgh, Scotland. Our research and development team is responsible for the design, development, manufacturing, and testing of our products. We focus our efforts on the development of digital lidar technology, developer tooling, software solutions, and innovative manufacturing technologies. The research and development team also partners with our operations and supply chain teams to develop scalable and reliable manufacturing processes and aid in supply chain planning and diversification. Our team consists of engineers, technicians, scientists, operators and professionals with experience from a wide variety of the world’s leading sensing, engineering, consumer electronics, and automotive organizations.

Government Regulation

While the U.S. has historically provided a positive legal landscape that allows safe testing and development of autonomous features, with nuances that vary from state to state, we are subject to the non-exhaustive list of regulations set forth below.

As a lidar technology company, we are subject to the Electronic Product Radiation Control Provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. These requirements are enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). Electronic product radiation includes laser technology. Regulations governing these products are intended to protect the public from hazardous or unnecessary exposure. Manufacturers are required to certify in product labeling and report to the FDA that their products comply with applicable performance standards as well as maintain manufacturing, testing and distribution records for their products. Furthermore, we are also subject to similar internationally harmonized standards and regulations governing the safe use of laser products. Based upon successful evaluations of the applicable laser products, followed by written attestation by international third-party certification agencies, manufacturers are required to create Self Declarations of Compliance (“SDOC”) of their products to such regulations, and label their products accordingly.

Our products and solutions are also subject to U.S. and foreign trade and customs product classifications, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. U.S. export control laws and regulations and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to countries, governments, and persons targeted by U.S. sanctions.

Similarly, we are also subject to sourcing regulations such as the requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation 2017/821, that require us to carefully monitor our supply chain. Adherence to these requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability and pricing of the materials that may be used in the manufacture of components used in our products.

Our customers may use our products in applications that are regulated and/or subject to industry standards. Such applications require that our products comply with the applicable regulations and standards, including, but not limited to, functional safety, cybersecurity, product safety and product performance standards. For example, we continue to add features to our existing OS product line, and we expect to design, engineer and test our new DF sensors, to meet evolving U.S. and international consumer product safety and performance requirements as well as Automotive and Industrial Functional Safety, Cybersecurity and performance certifications designed to ensure the safe deployment and operation of autonomous vehicles, automotive ADAS, industrial machines and robots. Significant foreign markets also continue to develop their own respective standards to define deployment requirements for higher levels of autonomy in these jurisdictions.

Our operations are subject to various international, federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the occupational health and safety of our employees and wage regulations. We are subject to the requirements of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as amended, (“OSHA”), and comparable international, state and local laws that protect and regulate employee health and safety.

We are subject to climate-related, sustainability and environmental laws, rules and regulations that are evolving and changing. Compliance with these laws, rules and regulations may require us to incur significant costs to comply, including obtaining permits, licenses, inspections of our facilities and products, and implementation of additional internal controls and additional oversight obligations.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2024, we employed 192 people on a full-time basis in the United States and 100 people on a full-time basis internationally, either directly through our international subsidiaries or through a professional employer organization. We also engaged a certain number of consultants and independent contractors to supplement our permanent workforce. None of our employees are currently represented by a labor union or covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe we have strong and positive relations with our employees.

Inclusion and Belonging. To attract, motivate and retain a highly-skilled workforce throughout our organization, we are focused on facilitating a safe and inclusive work environment that leverages the capabilities of our employees and encourages diversity of thought. In furtherance of these objectives, we provide Inclusion and Belonging training for our employees to promote a healthy and inclusive organizational culture. The Company is committed to the principles of equal employment and non-harassment. We are committed to complying with all federal, state, and local laws providing equal employment opportunities, and all other employment laws and regulations.

Employee engagement. We prioritize employee engagement and value employee feedback, which we gauge through periodic employee engagement surveys that help us monitor both engagement and satisfaction and provides an additional reference point for evaluating initiatives aimed at enhancing our employees’ experience.

Compensation and Benefits. We offer what we consider attractive compensation and benefit packages. This may include depending on location and eligibility, annual bonuses, paid time-off, 401(k) plan with a Company match (subject to the IRS annual limit), stock-based awards, employee stock purchase plan, health and wellness programs, and other benefits. Our long-term equity compensation is intended to align management interests with those of our stockholders and to encourage the creation of long-term value.

Training and Development. We provide management and leadership development sessions on a regular basis. We continue to expand our offerings to include additional activities which bring together managers of all levels from across the organization.

Additional Information

Our Internet address is https://ouster.com. At our Investor Relations website, https://investors.ouster.com, we make available free of charge a variety of information for investors, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file that material with or furnish it to the SEC. Our filings with the SEC can also be accessed through the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. Our website and the information included in or linked to our website are not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other report we file with, or furnish to, the SEC.

Our business involves significant risks and uncertainties, some of which are described below. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The realization of any of these risks and uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition, results of operations, growth and future prospects as well as our ability to accomplish our strategic objectives. In that event, the market price of our common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.

Our company has a limited operating history, having been in operation since 2015. Our limited operating history makes it difficult for us to evaluate our future prospects. Certain factors that could alone or in combination prevent us from successfully commercializing our products include:

• recession or economic downturn globally or in the jurisdictions in which we do business;
• inflation or deflation, as well as changes in existing and expected rates of inflation or deflation, which may vary across the jurisdictions in which we do business;
• our reliance on third parties to manufacture our products or supply significant parts needed for our production process;
• our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our manufacturers and suppliers;
• our ability to tailor our commercial production depending on scale and on a cost-effective basis in a timely manner;
• our ability to successfully expand our product offerings;
• our ability to develop and protect intellectual property;
• our ability to gain market acceptance of our products with customers and maintain and expand customer relationships;
• the adaptability of our products and the ability of our customers to integrate our products into their products in a timely and effective manner;
• the actions of direct and indirect competitors that may seek to enter the markets in which we expect to compete or that may seek to impose barriers to one or more markets that we intend to target;
• the long-lead time for development of market opportunities, for which we are only at an early stage of development;
• our ability to forecast our revenue, budget, and manage our expenses;
• difficulty in collecting, or failure to collect, accounts receivable, as well as longer collection periods;
• our ability to comply with existing and new or modified local laws and regulations applicable to our business, or laws and regulations applicable to our customers for applications in which they may use our products;
• our ability to plan for and manage capital expenditures for our current and future products, and manage our supply chain and supplier relationships related to these current and future products;
• our ability to anticipate and respond to macroeconomic changes and changes in the markets in which we operate and expect to operate;
• our ability to maintain and enhance the value of our reputation and brand;
• our ability to effectively manage our growth and business operations; and
• our ability to recruit and retain talented people at all levels of our organization.

If we fail to understand fully or adequately address the challenges that we are currently encountering or that we may encounter in the future, including those challenges described here and elsewhere in this Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors,” our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely and materially affected. If the risks and uncertainties that we plan for when operating our business are incorrect or change, or if we fail to manage these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We have incurred significant losses to date and may never achieve or sustain profitability.

We have experienced net losses in each year since our inception. In the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, we incurred net losses of $97.0 million and $374.1 million, respectively. We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future as we expand our product offering and continue to scale our commercial operations and research and development program. As of December 31, 2024, we had an accumulated deficit of $913.1 million. Even if we are able to increase the sales of our products, there can be no assurance that we will be profitable.

We expect we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future as we:

• hire additional personnel, as needed, to support investments in research and development (“R&D”), in order to develop technology and related software and to support the compliance needs in connection with being a public company;
• increase our sales and marketing functions, including expansion of our customer support and distribution capabilities; and
• expand operations and manufacturing.

If our products do not achieve sufficient market acceptance, we will not become profitable. If we fail to become profitable, or if we are unable to fund our business we may be unable to continue our operations. There can be no assurance that we will ever achieve or sustain profitability.

We expect to incur substantial R&D costs and devote significant resources to developing and commercializing new products, which could significantly affect our ability to become profitable and may not result in revenue to us. Any delay or interruption of the development and commercialization of new products may adversely affect our existing business and prospects for securing future business.

Our future growth depends on penetrating new markets, adapting existing products to new applications and customer requirements, and introducing new and effective products at an opportune time that may then achieve market acceptance. To remain competitive, we continue to develop new products and expand our existing product offerings. For instance, in January 2023, we announced the release of our software, Ouster Gemini, a cloud-backed digital lidar perception platform for crowd analytics, security, and intelligent transportation systems. Ouster Gemini offers the ability to detect, classify, and track moving objects in real-time using the 3D data from a single or multiple fused Ouster lidar sensors. In connection with the development of our products, we incur and expect to continue to incur substantial R&D costs, which may increase over time. Our R&D expenses were $58.1 million and $91.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. Because we account for R&D as an operating expense, these expenditures will adversely affect our results of operations in the future.

Further, our R&D program may be delayed and may not produce timely results. If we cannot produce successful results in time to accommodate customers’ or potential customers’ development timelines, we may lose business. If we are unsuccessful in introducing these products in accordance with our product launch plans or any publicly announced launch dates, it may be injurious to our reputation and brand and adversely affect our ability to be competitive in our four target markets and potential new markets. In launching such products, we may face foreseen and unforeseen difficulties that adversely affect such commercialization and could have a material adverse effect on our operations and business. Additionally, the success of our competitors’ R&D efforts, including producing higher performing products or providing products competitive to our new products to our customers before us, may result in loss of business to us.

The promise of new products and successful R&D may even decrease our expected and actual revenue attributable to existing products, as historically, customers have delayed or cancelled outstanding purchasing commitments for certain products in anticipation of the release of new generation products from the Company. There is no guarantee that these delays and cancellations will not occur again in the future as we develop, announce and commercialize new products like our DF solid-state lidar sensor or our complementary software solutions.

If we are unable to overcome our limited sales history and establish and maintain confidence in our long-term business prospects among customers in our target markets or if our revenue opportunity does not materialize into sales and revenue, then our financial condition, operating results, business prospects and access to capital may suffer materially.

Our company has a limited sales history, as we only commenced selling our first revenue grade products in late 2018. Because of our limited sales history, we have limited experience managing and growing our relationships with existing customers and securing new customers in our target industries.

Our relationships with many of our existing customers are limited as they may not be prepared to select Ouster as a long-term supplier given our limited operating and sales history. To establish preliminary relationships with certain customers and to build their confidence, we have entered, and may continue to enter, into evaluation agreements, spot buy purchase orders, non-binding letters of intent, and strategic customer agreements. These agreements are largely non-binding, do not include any minimum obligation to purchase any quantities of any products at this time, and do not require that the parties enter into a subsequent definitive, long-term, binding agreements; however, these preliminary agreements assist the Company in building confidence with customers if we are able to effectively perform and otherwise maintain positive relationships with them. If we are unable to build confidence with our existing customers, either through these preliminary agreements (due to any failure to enter into or perform under the agreements) or otherwise, or if we are unable to secure opportunities from these non-binding agreements, including those involving strategic customers, we may be unable to produce accurate forecasts or become profitable.

Our new customers may be less confident in us and less likely to purchase our products because of a lack of awareness about our products. They may also not be convinced that our business will succeed because of the absence of an established sales, service, support, and operating history. To address this, we must, among other activities, grow and improve our marketing capability and brand awareness, which may be costly. These activities may not be effective or could delay our ability to capitalize on the opportunities that we believe are suitable to our technology and products and may prevent us from successfully commercializing our products.

To build and maintain our business, we must maintain confidence in our products, long-term financial viability and business prospects. Failure to establish and maintain customer confidence may also adversely affect our reputation and business among our suppliers, analysts, ratings agencies, stockholders and other interested parties.

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes our future operating results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or any guidance we may provide and could cause our stock price to fluctuate or decline.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes it difficult for us to predict our future operating results. Our financial results may fluctuate as a result of a variety of factors, including:

• the timing of ultimate end market and customer adoption of our products and particular versions of our products;
• the varying length of production cycles for our customers to integrate our products into their broader platforms;
• supply chain constraints and considerations and impacts on our costs of goods sold, such as shortages of semiconductor chips;
• our product mix and average selling prices, including negotiated selling prices and long-term customer agreements;
• the cost of raw materials or supplied components critical for the manufacture of our products;
• the timing and cost of, and level of investment in, research and development relating to our digital lidar technology and related software;
• developments involving our competitors;
• changes in governmental regulations affecting us, our supply chain, or applications in which our customers use our products or software, including export controls, tariffs, data privacy and security, or new regulatory standards for automotive, industrial, infrastructure, or robotics;
• future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies;
• adverse litigation, judgments, settlements or other litigation-related costs, or claims that may give rise to such costs; and
• general market conditions and other factors, including factors unrelated to our operating performance or the operating performance of our competitors.

Many of these factors are outside of our control and may not accurately reflect the underlying performance of our business. The individual or cumulative effects of factors discussed above could result in large fluctuations and unpredictability in our quarterly and annual operating results. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful.

This variability and unpredictability could also result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any guidance we may provide, or if the guidance we provide is below the expectations of analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Such a stock price decline could occur even if our performance is consistent with any previously publicly stated guidance.

Our revenue and margins could be adversely affected if we fail to maintain competitive average selling prices, high sales volumes, and/or fail to reduce product costs.

Cost-cutting initiatives adopted by our customers often place increased downward pressure on our average selling prices. We also expect that any long term or high-volume agreements with customers may require step-downs in pricing over the term of the agreement or, if commercialized, over the period of production. We strive to keep our average selling price competitive and expect to achieve profitability by maintaining competitive average sales prices and through continually lower product costs. Our average selling price may be driven down by customer-specific selling price fluctuations such as non-standard discounts on large volume purchases. These lower average selling prices on large volume purchases may cause fluctuations in revenue and gross margins on a quarterly and annual basis and ultimately adversely affect our profitability. We have experienced and may in the future experience declines in the average selling prices of our products generally as our customers seek to commercialize autonomous systems at prices low enough to achieve market acceptance and as our competitors continue to produce and commercialize lower cost competing technologies. To achieve profitability and maintain margins, we will also need to continually reduce product and manufacturing costs. Reductions in product and manufacturing costs are principally achieved by scaling our production volumes and through step changes in manufacturing and continued engineering of the most cost-effective designs for our products. Further, as we continue to provide support for REV6, we anticipate downward pressure on our margins. In addition, we must continuously drive initiatives to reduce labor cost, improve worker efficiency, reduce the cost of materials, further lower overall product costs by carefully managing component prices, inventory and shipping cost, and minimize the impacts of tariffs and other regulatory impacts. We need to continually increase sales volume and introduce new, lower-cost products in order to maintain our overall gross margin. If we are unable to maintain competitive average selling prices, increase our sales volume or successfully introduce new, low-cost products, our revenue and overall gross margin will likely decline.

We compete against established market participants that have substantially greater resources than us and against known and unknown market entrants who may disrupt our target markets.

Our target markets are highly competitive and we may not be able to compete effectively in the market against these competitors. Competitors may offer lidar products at lower prices than ours, including pricing that we believe is below their cost, or may offer superior performing lidar products. These companies also compete with us indirectly by attempting to solve some of the same challenges with different technology. Established competitors in the market for lidar sensors have significantly greater resources and more experience than we do. These competitors have commercialized lidar technology that has achieved market adoption, strong brand recognition and may continue to improve in both anticipated and unanticipated ways. They may also have entered into commercial relationships with key customers and have built relationships and dependencies between themselves and those key customers.

In addition to current market competitors, new competitors may enter the lidar market or create products that function as an alternative to lidar, which may disrupt the commercial landscape of our target markets in ways that we may not be able to adapt to adequately or in a timely fashion. The already competitive landscape of the lidar market, including both foreseeable and unforeseeable entries of competitors and lidar technology from those competitors in our target markets, along with the potential emergence of new non-lidar solutions, may result in downward pricing pressure, reduced margins and may impede our ability to increase the sales of our products or cause us to lose market share, any of which will adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We target many customers that are large corporations with substantial negotiating power and exacting product standards. If we are unable to sell our products to these customers, our prospects and results of operations will be adversely affected.

Many of our current and potential customers are large corporations that often possess significant leverage over their suppliers, and can successfully demand contract terms favorable to themselves, such as reserving the right to terminate their supply contracts for convenience. The disparities in negotiating power between us and larger corporations have required, and may require in the future, that we accept less favorable contract terms. These large corporations also have exacting technical specifications and requirements that we have been unable to, and may continue to be unable to, meet, thereby precluding our ability to secure sales. Meeting the technical requirements to secure and maintain significant contracts with any of these companies will require a substantial investment of our time and resources, and if we fail to comply with our customers’ technical specifications and standards, we may lose existing and future business. Even when we succeed in securing contracts, these large companies have required, and may require in the future, evolving technical specifications for our products and may terminate our agreement or make a later determination that our products are not satisfactory, and even set a standard for the industry that we may not be able to meet. We therefore have no assurance that we can establish relationships with these companies, that our products will meet the needs of these or other companies, or that a contract with these companies will culminate in significant or any product sales.

Furthermore, in some instances, these large companies may have internally developed products and solutions that are competitive to our products. These companies may have substantial research and development resources, which may allow them to acquire or develop independently, or in partnership with others, competitive technologies. Such activities may foreclose significant sales opportunities for our products.

If our products are not selected for inclusion in our target markets, our business will be materially and adversely affected.

Although our products are designed for use in multiple markets, each of our target or new markets may have unique features and demands. If we are unsuccessful in meeting this demand, it may affect our entrance into these target or new markets which could adversely affect our future results of operations.

Our products are used in a wide variety of existing and emerging use cases in the industrial market, where our target customers are generally engaged in the manufacturing, operation, or after-market modification of heavy industrial machinery. These customers tend to be large companies that move slowly to larger scale production, often with years-long timelines. If our products are not chosen for deployment in these projects, or we lose a program under any circumstances, we may not have an opportunity to obtain that business again for many years. Industrial automation is a demanding industry with product specifications that our products may not always meet.

Our products also are used in a wide variety of existing and emerging use cases in the smart infrastructure market, which generally consists of public bodies and private commercial businesses engaging in the monitoring and analysis of pedestrian and vehicle movements for the purpose of providing building security, improving road user safety, and increasing roadway efficiency. This is still a nascent market, and while this industry is experimenting with the use of lidar in these applications, our customers may decide that lidar is not a viable solution for a variety of reasons, including price points, interoperability, and integration of lidar sensors. Customers in this market are often local governments, such as city governments, which may be subject to political pressures, and may not control their own budgets. For example, programs could be cancelled due to executive or legislative action that is out of a local government’s control.

Our products also may be purchased by automotive OEMs and their suppliers in connection with their design and development of autonomous driving and ADAS technology. These programs are time and resource intensive, requiring thousands of man hours and several years. Automotive OEMs and suppliers undertake extensive testing or qualification processes prior to placing orders for large quantities of products such as ours, because such products will function as part of a larger system or platform and must meet other specifications. We spend significant time and resources to pursue the business of having our products selected by automotive OEMs and their suppliers for use in the manufacture of a particular vehicle model. If we are not chosen to supply products to Tiers 1s, OEMs may be less inclined to select our products for a particular vehicle model, which could turn into a lost opportunity to supply our products to this automotive OEM for a period of several years. If our products are not selected by an automotive OEM or its suppliers for one vehicle model or if our products are not successful in that vehicle model, it is less likely that our products will be deployed in other vehicle models of that OEM. If we fail to win a significant number of vehicle models from one or more of automotive OEMs or their suppliers, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

Our products also are used in a wide variety of existing and emerging use cases in the robotics market, in which our customers are generally engaged in the design, production, operation, or after-market modification of small mobile unmanned vehicles, which includes wheeled robots, legged robots, and drones. This is a competitive market that often has strict functional and pricing requirements for products. If we are unable to make products that meet these requirements, or sell products at the required price point, we could lose this business to competitors or competitive technologies. There are diverse and potentially conflicting requirements across the robotics industry that may force us to prioritize certain segments over others, resulting in a lower total available market. Our target markets involve risks of program delay, loss, and cancellation.

The complexity of our products could result in unforeseen delays or expenses from undetected defects, errors or reliability issues in hardware or software which could reduce the market adoption of our new products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers, expose us to product liability and other claims and adversely affect our operating costs.

Our products are highly technical and very complex and require high standards to manufacture and have in the past and will likely in the future experience defects, errors or reliability issues at various stages of development. We may be unable to timely release new products, manufacture existing products, correct problems that have arisen or correct such problems to our customers’ satisfaction. Additionally, undetected errors, defects or reliability issues, especially as new products are introduced or as new versions are released, could result in serious injury to the end users of technology incorporating our products, or those in the surrounding area, our customers never being able to commercialize technology incorporating our products, litigation against us, negative publicity and other consequences. These risks are particularly prevalent in the autonomous driving and ADAS markets. Some errors or defects in our products may only be discovered after they have been tested, commercialized and deployed by customers. If that is the case, we may incur significant additional development costs and product recall expenses, repair and/or replacement costs. These problems may also result in claims, including class actions, against us by our customers or others. Our reputation or brand may be damaged as a result of these problems and customers may be reluctant to buy our products, which could adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers and could adversely affect our financial results.

In addition, we could face material legal claims for breach of contract, product liability, fraud, tort or breach of warranty as a result of these problems. Defending a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, could be costly and may divert management’s attention and adversely affect the market’s perception of us and our products. In addition, our business liability insurance coverage could prove inadequate with respect to a claim and future coverage may be unavailable on acceptable terms or at all. These product-related issues could result in claims against us and our business could be adversely affected.

Our customers use our solutions in autonomous driving and ADAS applications, which present the risk of significant injury, including fatalities. We may be subject to claims if a product using our lidar technology is involved in an accident and persons are injured or purport to be injured. Any insurance that we carry may not be sufficient or it may not apply to all situations. Similarly, our customers could be subjected to claims as a result of such accidents and bring legal claims against us to attempt to hold us liable. In addition, if lawmakers or governmental agencies were to determine that the use of our products or autonomous driving or certain ADAS applications increased the risk of injury to all or a subset of our customers, they may pass laws or adopt regulations that limit the use of our products or increase our liability associated with the use of our products or that regulate the use of or delay the deployment of autonomous driving and ADAS technology. Any of these events could adversely affect our brand, relationships with customers, operating results or financial condition.

We may incur significant direct or indirect liabilities in connection with our product warranties which could adversely affect our business and operating results.

We typically offer a limited product warranty that requires our products to conform to the applicable specifications and be free from defects in materials and workmanship for one to two years. As a result of increased competition and changing standards in our target markets, we may be required to increase our warranty period length and the scope of our warranty. To be competitive, we may be required to implement these increases before we are able to determine the economic impact of an increase. Accordingly, we may be at risk that any such warranty increase could result in foreseeable and unforeseeable losses for the Company.

In particular, the usage of our products by target customers could make us liable for warranty claims and pecuniary and reputational damages. In our target markets, our products may be placed in physical locations and environments that present harsh operating conditions, or that present a risk of product damage due to accidents or vandalism. This may result in more product failures than we anticipate, and may require us to provide warranties for our products beyond our knowledge of their performance. This could increase the rate of customer returns and warranty claims, resulting in higher-than-expected operating costs for us. Product failures may also affect market acceptance of our products and our ability to win future business. Any negative publicity related to the perceived quality of our products could affect our brand image, partner and customer demand, and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.

We may require additional capital in order to execute our business plan, which may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all.

We may require additional capital in order to execute on our business plan, and we may require additional capital to fund our R&D efforts and to respond to technological advancements, competitive dynamics or technologies, customer demands, business opportunities, challenges, acquisitions or unforeseen circumstances and we may determine to utilize our “at-the-market” offering program or engage in equity or debt financings or enter into credit facilities for other reasons. In order to stay on our growth trajectory and further business relationships with current or potential customers or partners, or for other reasons, we may issue equity or equity-linked securities to such current or potential customers or partners. We may not be able to timely secure additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, or at all, particularly in an uncertain economic environment. We maintain the majority of our cash and cash equivalents in accounts with major U.S. and multi-national financial institutions, and our deposits at these institutions exceed insured limits. Market conditions can impact the viability of these institutions. In the event of failure of any of the financial institutions where we maintain our cash and cash equivalents, there can be no assurance that we would be able to access uninsured funds in a timely manner or at all. Any inability to access or delay in accessing these funds could adversely affect our business and financial position.

If we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible debt, including through our “at-the-market” offering program, or other equity-linked securities or if we issue equity or equity-linked securities to current or potential customers to further business relationships, our existing stockholders could experience significant dilution. Any debt financing obtained by us in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited and our business results and operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Market adoption of lidar remains uncertain, and it is difficult to forecast long-term end-customer adoption rates and demand for our products.

The majority of our revenue is generated by the sale of our digital lidar sensors and accessories. Given the evolving nature of the markets in which we operate, it is difficult to predict the customer demand or adoption rates for lidar technology generally or our products specifically. If demand does not develop or if we cannot accurately forecast customer demand, our future financial results, business, results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected. If current or prospective customers have a negative perception of, or experience with, lidar or a competitor’s lidar products they may be reluctant to adopt lidar in general or specifically our products. Any negative publicity, regardless of its accuracy, could materially and adversely affect our business.

Additionally, existing or new non-lidar technologies may emerge as customers’ preferred alternative to lidar and may adversely affect the adoption of our lidar solutions and of lidar generally. Significant developments in alternative technologies, such as cameras and radar, may materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results in ways we do not currently anticipate. Any failure by us or the lidar market generally to develop new or enhanced technologies or processes, or to react to changes in existing technologies, could adversely affect the adoption of lidar and sales of our current products or materially delay the development and introduction of new and enhanced products, which could result in the loss of competitiveness of our products, decreased revenue and a loss of market share to competitors.

We are pursuing opportunities in markets that involve novel applications that are rapidly evolving, and that include both technological and regulatory uncertainties, making it difficult to predict the size and timing of market opportunities. For example, autonomous driving and lidar-based ADAS applications require complex technology, stringent testing, and rigorous safety controls. Because these automotive systems are both themselves complex, and also depend on complex technologies from many suppliers, commercialization of autonomous driving or ADAS products could be delayed or impaired on account of technological capabilities that are not sufficiently advanced for deployment in vehicles. These standards may never be met at all. Additionally, ADAS has yet to, and may never, achieve widespread adoption, which would reduce demand for lidar in that market. Similar concerns are also applicable to our other three verticals.

Although we currently have contracts with numerous commercial customers across diverse markets, these customers may not be able to utilize our technology in the foreseeable future, or at all. Regulatory, safety or reliability developments, many of which are outside of our control, could also cause delays or otherwise impair commercial adoption of these new technologies, which will adversely affect our growth. Our future financial performance will depend on our ability to make timely investments in the correct market opportunities in this environment.

Many of our customers are still in the testing and development phases of applications with our products and it cannot be certain that they will commercialize products or systems with our digital lidar sensors or at all. We believe adoption of lidar products, including our digital lidar sensors, will depend on numerous factors, including: whether the technological capabilities of lidar and lidar-based products meet users’ current and evolving needs; whether the benefits of designing lidar into larger sensing systems outweigh the costs, complexity and time needed to deploy such technology or replace or modify existing systems that may have used other modalities such as cameras and radars; whether users in other applications can move beyond the testing and development phases and proceed to commercializing systems supported by lidar technology and whether lidar developers can keep pace with rapid technological changes in certain developing markets. If lidar technology generally does not achieve commercial success or if the market adoption is slower than expected, our business, results of operation and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected.

We may experience difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations.

We are experiencing significant growth in the scope and nature of our operations. Our ability to manage our operations and future growth will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, compliance programs and reporting systems. We are currently in the process of strengthening our compliance programs, including our compliance programs related to product certifications, quality management systems certifications, environmental certifications, export controls, privacy and cybersecurity and anti-corruption. We may not be able to implement improvements in an efficient or timely manner and may discover deficiencies in existing controls, programs, systems and procedures, which could have an adverse effect on our business, reputation and financial results. Additionally, rapid growth in our business may place a strain on our human and capital resources. Furthermore, we expect to continue to conduct our business internationally and anticipate increased business operations in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These diversified, global operations place increased demands on our limited resources and require us to substantially expand the capabilities of our administrative and operational resources and to attract, train, manage and retain qualified management, technical, manufacturing, engineering, sales and other personnel. As our operations expand domestically and internationally, we will need to continue to manage multiple locations and additional relationships with various customers, partners, suppliers and other third parties across several markets.

We are focusing our current commercial efforts across four distinct target markets. We will be required to prioritize our limited financial and managerial resources as we pursue particular development and commercialization efforts in each target market. Any resources we expend on one or more of these efforts could be at the expense of other potentially profitable opportunities.

If we are not able to effectively maintain or grow our global sales and marketing organization, or maintain or grow an effective network of distributors, resellers, and integrators, our business prospects, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

In order to generate future sales growth, we will need to maintain or grow the size and geographic coverage of our field organization, including marketing, direct sales, customer support and technical services. Accordingly, our future success will depend largely on our ability to hire, train, retain, and motivate skilled regional sales managers and direct sales representatives with significant technical knowledge and understanding of our products. Because of the competition for their skillset, we may not be able to attract or retain such personnel on reasonable terms, if at all. If we are unable to maintain or grow our global sales and marketing organizations, we may not be able to increase our revenue, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Additionally, we rely on a network of independent distributors to help generate sales of our products internationally. If a dispute arises with a distributor or if we terminate our relationship with a distributor or a distributor goes out of business, it may take time to identify an alternative distributor, to train new personnel to market our products, and our ability to sell our products in a region formerly serviced by a terminated distributor could be harmed. In addition, our distributors may not successfully market and sell our products and may not devote sufficient time and resources that we believe are necessary to enable our products to develop, achieve or sustain market acceptance. Any of these factors could reduce our revenue or impair our revenue growth in affected markets, increase our costs in those markets or damage our reputation. In addition, if an independent distributor were to depart and be retained by one of our competitors, we may be unable to prevent that distributor from soliciting business from our existing customers, which could further adversely affect us. As a result of our reliance on third-party distributors, we may be subject to disruptions and increased costs due to factors beyond our control, including labor strikes, third-party errors and other issues. If the services of any of these third-party distributors become unsatisfactory, we may experience delays in meeting our customers’ demands and we may be unable to find a suitable replacement on a timely basis or on commercially reasonable terms. Any failure to deliver products in a timely manner may damage our reputation and could cause us to lose potential customers.

Our forecasts of market growth may not be accurate.

Market opportunity estimates and growth forecasts included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our other public disclosures are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. The forecasts and estimates relating to the expected size and growth of the markets for lidar-based technology may prove to be inaccurate. Even if these markets experience the forecasted growth, we may not grow our business at similar rates, or at all. Our future growth is subject to many factors, including market adoption of our products, which is subject to many risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, the forecasts and estimates of market size and growth described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our other public disclosures, should not be taken as indicative of our future growth.

Our sales and operations in international markets expose us to operational, financial and regulatory risks.

International sales comprise a significant amount of our overall revenue and while growing our international sales is an important part of our growth strategy, these efforts may not be successful. International operations are subject to a number of other risks, including:

• import and export laws and the impact of tariffs;
• exchange rate fluctuations;
• political and economic instability, war, international terrorism and anti-American sentiment, particularly in emerging markets and the geographic regions affected by the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars;
• uncertainty regarding the trade relationships among the United States, Canada, China, Mexico and Taiwan, as well as other countries, and related impacts to our supply chain;
• potential for violations of anti-corruption laws and regulations, such as those related to bribery and fraud;
• preference for locally branded products, and laws and business practices favoring local competition;
• increased difficulty in managing inventory;
• increased risk in collecting trade receivables;
• delayed revenue recognition;
• less effective protection and/or lack of enforceability of intellectual property;
• stringent regulation of the autonomous or other systems or products using our products and stringent consumer protection and product compliance regulations, including but not limited to General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union, European competition law, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive and the European Ecodesign Directive that are costly to comply with and may vary from country to country;
• difficulties and costs of staffing and managing foreign operations;
• natural disasters and severe weather events including earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, rising sea levels, as well as other impacts of climate change;
• withdrawals from, or renegotiation of existing trade agreements by the United States (or other jurisdictions) potentially affecting countries in which we do business;
• changes in local tax and customs duty laws or changes in the enforcement, application or interpretation of such laws; and
• U.S. government’s restrictions on certain technology transfer to certain countries of concern.

The occurrence of any of these risks could negatively affect our international business and consequently our business, operating results, and financial condition.

We are subject to the risk of cancellation or postponement of our contracts with customers or the unsuccessful implementation of our products, which may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We have experienced, and may experience in the future, unexpected cancellations of major purchases of our products, which has affected and may adversely affect our results of operations. Prospective customers across our target markets generally must make significant commitments of resources to test and validate our products and confirm that they can be integrated with other technologies before including them in any particular system, product or model. Our products must meet customer specifications for quality, reliability and performance. Integration of our products may reveal errors, defects or incompatibilities with other sensing modalities that, if we are unable to correct them, may result in loss of customers, loss of market share, damage to our brand and reputation, increased service and replacement costs, lack of profitability, and constitute a hindrance to market acceptance. Although our agreements may contain provisions that aim at limiting our liability for damages resulting from defects in our products, such limitations and disclaimers may not be enforceable or otherwise effectively protect us from such claims, and we may have to indemnify our customers against liabilities arising from defects in our products or in their solutions that incorporate our products. These liabilities may also include costs incurred by our channel partners or end users to correct problems or replace our products, which could adversely affect our operating results and business prospects. These inherent operational risks are all the more important that the development cycles of our products with new customers vary widely depending on the application, market, customer and the complexity of the product. In our four target markets, development cycles can be six months to seven or more years. These development cycles require us to invest significant resources prior to realizing any revenue from the commercialization. Our revenue growth may be impaired if the system, product or vehicle model that includes our digital lidar sensors is unsuccessful, including for reasons unrelated to our technology or software. Long development cycles and product cancellations or postponements may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

If we do not adequately manage our inventory, we could lose sales or incur higher inventory-related expenses, which could negatively affect our operating results.

To ensure adequate inventory supply, we forecast inventory needs and expenses, place orders sufficiently in advance with our suppliers and manufacturing partners and manufacture products based on our estimates of future demand for particular products. Fluctuations in the adoption of lidar products may affect our ability to forecast our future operating results, including revenue, gross margins, cash flows and profitability. Our ability to accurately forecast demand for our products could be affected by many factors, including the rapidly changing nature of our current target markets, the uncertainty surrounding the market acceptance and commercialization of lidar technology, the emergence of new markets, an increase or decrease in customer demand for our products or for products and services of our competitors, product introductions by competitors, market or supply chain disruptions due to public health crises, and any associated work stoppages or interruptions, unanticipated changes in general market conditions and the weakening of economic conditions or consumer confidence in future economic conditions. We may face challenges acquiring adequate supplies to manufacture our products and we, Benchmark and Fabrinet may not be able to manufacture our sensors at a rate necessary to satisfy the levels of demand, which would negatively affect our short-term and long-term growth. This risk may be exacerbated by the fact that we may not carry or be able to obtain from our suppliers a significant amount of inventory to satisfy short-term demand increases. If we fail to accurately forecast customer demand, we may experience excess inventory levels or a shortage of products available for sale, which has forced us to record inventory write-downs in the past

Inventory levels in excess of customer demand have resulted and may in the future result in inventory write-downs or write-offs and the sale of excess inventory at discounted prices, which would adversely affect our financial results, including our gross margin, and have a negative effect on our brand. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand for our products, we may not be able to deliver products to meet our requirements, and this could result in damage to our brand and customer relationships and adversely affect our revenue and operating results.

We are exposed to the risk of write-downs on the value of our inventory and other assets, in addition to purchase commitment cancellation risk.

We record a write-down for product and component inventories that have become obsolete or exceed anticipated demand, or for which cost exceeds net realizable value. We also accrue necessary cancellation fee reserves for orders of excess products and components. We review long-lived assets, including capital assets held at our suppliers’ facilities, for impairment whenever events or circumstances indicate the assets may not be recoverable. If we determine that an impairment has occurred, we record a write-down equal to the amount by which the carrying value of the asset exceeds its fair value. No assurance can be given that we will not incur write-downs, fees, impairments and other charges given the rapid and unpredictable pace of product obsolescence in the industries in which we compete.

We order components for our products and build inventory in advance of product manufacturing and shipments. Manufacturing purchase obligations cover our forecasted component and manufacturing requirements, typically for periods up to three months. Because our target markets are volatile, competitive and subject to rapid technology and price changes, and because we have limited sales history, there is a risk we will forecast incorrectly and order or produce excess or insufficient amounts of components or products, or not fully utilize our firm purchase commitments.

Our business could be materially and adversely affected if our customers become unable to, or otherwise do not, pay their invoices.

If one or more of our major customers is unable to pay our invoices as they become due or a customer simply refuses to make such payments if it experiences financial difficulties, our business would be adversely affected. If a major customer were to enter into bankruptcy proceedings or similar proceedings whereby contractual commitments are subject to stay of execution and the possibility of legal or other modification, payments received may be subject to clawback and we could be forced to record a substantial loss. Additionally, a number of our customers are startup companies, small and mid-sized businesses, that are privately funded, have limited resources, and do not have a history of creditworthiness that we can audit to determine reliability and increase the potential risk to record potential losses. These companies could fail to raise enough capital and have to shut down operations. Even if they are financially solvent and stable and we are successful in securing a commercial relationship with them, their business plans for future programs may be inherently uncertain and unpredictable, and less structured than established companies. We generally do not require collateral or other security deposits for accounts receivable. To reduce credit risk, the Company considers customer creditworthiness, past transaction history with the customer as well as changes in customer payment terms when determining the collectability of specific customer accounts. Periodically, we may require a customer to make advanced payments in advance of product shipments. These measures to reduce credit risk may not be sufficient and our accounts receivable could be impaired or our revenues adversely impacted.

We are exposed to credit risk on our trade accounts receivable, supplier non-trade receivables and prepayments related to long-term supply agreements, and this risk is heightened during periods when economic conditions worsen.

We sell our products directly to small and mid-sized businesses and educational customers. Our outstanding trade receivables are not covered by collateral, third-party bank support or financing arrangements, or credit insurance. Our exposure to credit and collectability risk on our trade receivables is higher in certain international markets and our ability to mitigate such risks may be limited. We also have unsecured supplier non-trade receivables resulting from purchases of components by outsourcing partners and other vendors that manufacture sub-assemblies or assemble final products for us. In addition, from time to time, we may make prepayments associated with long-term supply agreements to secure supply of inventory components. While we are implementing procedures to monitor and limit exposure to credit risk on our trade and supplier non-trade receivables, there can be no assurance such procedures will effectively limit our credit risk and avoid losses.

Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.

It is possible that we will not generate taxable income in time to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain tax credits before their expiration (if we generate taxable income at all).

In addition, our federal and state net operating loss carryforwards and certain tax credits may be subject to significant limitations under Section 382 and Section 383 of the Internal Revenue Code, respectively, and similar provisions of state law. Under those sections of the Internal Revenue Code, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes, such as research tax credits, to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. In general, an “ownership change” will occur if there is a cumulative change in our ownership by certain significant shareholders that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have completed an analysis of Section 382 ownership changes in our stock through February 10, 2023 and have concluded that we have experienced ownership changes that will result in limitations in our ability to use an immaterial amount of tax credit carryforwards. We may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of future transactions in our stock. If it is determined that we undergo one or more ownership changes in the future, then our ability to utilize our federal and state net operating loss carryforwards or other tax attributes may be limited or eliminated.

Key components in our products come from limited or single source third-party suppliers, and we expect to rely on third parties to manufacture a significant portion of our products for the foreseeable future. Interruptions in our relationships with these third parties could adversely impact our business.

We rely on third-party manufacturers, including Benchmark and Fabrinet, to supply a substantial portion of our products. These arrangements are intended to lower our operating costs, but they also reduce our direct control over production and distribution. This diminished control may have an adverse effect on the quality or quantity of products or services, or our flexibility to respond to changing conditions. If Benchmark or any of our third-party component suppliers or logistics and transportation partners experience interruptions, delays or disruptions in supplying their products or services, including by natural disasters, trade restrictions, public health crises, or work stoppages or capacity constraints, our ability to ship products to distributors and customers may be delayed. Similarly, we source components from countries that may be impacted by tariffs under the current U.S. government, including Canada, China, and Mexico. If the cost of products sourced from these or certain other countries increase significantly due to tariffs or trade restrictions, we may not be able to change suppliers or otherwise avoid or mitigate such costs. In addition, unfavorable economic conditions could result in financial distress among third-party suppliers or manufacturers upon which we rely, thereby increasing the risk of disruption of supplies necessary to fulfill our production requirements and meet customer demands. Additionally, if any of these third parties on whom we rely were to experience quality control problems in their operations and our products do not meet customer or regulatory requirements, we could be required to cover the cost of repair or replacement of any defective products. These delays or product quality issues could have an immediate and material adverse effect on our ability to fulfill orders and could have a negative effect on our operating results. In addition, such delays or issues with product quality could adversely affect our reputation and our relationship with our customers, distributors, value added software resellers, and integrators.

If these third parties experience financial, operational, manufacturing capacity or other difficulties, or experience shortages in required components, or if they are otherwise unable or unwilling to continue to manufacture our products in required volumes or at all, our supply may be disrupted, we may be required to seek alternate manufacturers and we may be required to re-design our products. It would be time consuming, and could be costly and impracticable, to begin to use new manufacturers, components or designs, and such changes could cause significant interruptions in supply and could have an adverse effect on our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries and may subsequently lead to the loss of sales. While we take measures to protect our trade secrets, the use of third-party suppliers and manufacturers may also risk disclosure of our innovative and proprietary manufacturing methodologies, which could adversely affect our business.

We believe there are a limited number of competent, high-quality suppliers in the industry that meet our strict quality and control standards, and as we seek to obtain additional or alternative supplier arrangements in the future, there can be no assurance that we would be able to do so on satisfactory terms, in a timely manner, or at all. Our suppliers could also discontinue or modify components used in our products. In some cases, the lead times associated with certain components are lengthy and preclude rapid changes in quantities and delivery schedules. We may in the future experience component shortages and price fluctuations of certain key components and materials, and the predictability of the availability and pricing of these components may be limited. Component shortages or pricing fluctuations could be material in the future. In the event of a component shortage, supply interruption or material pricing change from suppliers of these components, we may not be able to develop alternate sources in a timely manner or at all in the case of sole or limited sources.

Developing alternate sources of supply for these components may be time-consuming, difficult, and costly and we may not be able to source these components on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all, which may undermine our ability to meet our requirements or to fill customer orders in a timely manner. Any interruption or delay in the supply of any of these parts or components, or the inability to obtain these parts or components from alternate sources at acceptable prices and within a reasonable amount of time, would adversely affect our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries to our customers. This could adversely affect our relationships with customers and distributors and could cause delays in shipment of our products and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, increased component costs could result in lower gross margins. Even where we are able to pass increased component costs along to our customers, there may be a lapse of time before it is possible to do so, such that we must absorb the increased cost. If we are unable to buy these components in quantities sufficient to meet our requirements on a timely basis, we will not be able to deliver our products to our customers, and cause our customers to use competitors’ products instead of ours.

Should operations at our third-party suppliers, including Benchmark and Fabrinet, encounter disruptions or losses that may be caused by work stoppages, disease outbreaks or pandemics, acts of war, terrorism, fire, earthquakes, flooding or other natural disasters, it could result in delays, postponement or reduce production of our products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition until such time as such production disruption is resolved or an alternate source of production or supply is secured.

Outsourcing a substantial percentage of our manufacturing outside of the United States involves certain risks or may not be successful, which could harm our ability to deliver products and recognize revenue.

Historically, we manufactured all of our digital sensors at our facility in San Francisco, California. We continue to maintain a portion of our manufacturing at this facility, including any production of Buy America and Buy American-compliant sensors; however, in 2019, we began moving a portion of our manufacturing operations to a manufacturing facility in Thailand in connection with our relationship with Benchmark, which for the year ended December 31, 2024, accounted for the majority of our OS sensor manufacturing output. After the merger with Velodyne, we moved manufacturing operations of Velodyne sensors to a Fabrinet facility in Thailand. The Company expects to continue to outsource the higher volume product line manufacturing to its manufacturing partners, Benchmark and Fabrinet. We have invested in manufacturing process equipment which is held at Benchmark and Fabrinet facilities. We expect to make additional capital expenditures and to continue to devote the attention of our management and other personnel to the operations located at our outsourced manufacturing partners. We may also need to make prepayments to some of our suppliers associated with long-term supply agreements. While these arrangements help ensure the supply of components and finished goods, if any of the Company’s manufacturing partners or suppliers experiences severe financial problems or other disruptions in their business, such continued supply would be reduced or terminated, and the recoverability of manufacturing process equipment or prepayments would be negatively impacted. In such cases the efforts and attention of our management and other personnel to these relationships that were diverted from our other business operations would not be recoverable.

Additionally, manufacturing outside the United States is subject to several inherent risks, including:

• foreign currency fluctuations;
• local economic conditions;
• political instability;
• import or export requirements;
• foreign government regulatory requirements;
• reduced protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
• tariffs and other trade barriers and restrictions; and
• potentially adverse tax consequences.

We do not currently have long-term, committed supply contracts with many of our suppliers. Loss of one or more of these suppliers or our inability to identify and establish relationships with new suppliers could harm our business and impede our growth.

Because we do not maintain long-term supply contracts with many of our suppliers, they could seek to alter or terminate their relationship with us at any time, leaving us with periods during which we have limited or no ability to manufacture our products. The production of our products is dependent on producing or sourcing certain key components, including semiconductor chips, and raw materials at acceptable price levels. If we are unable to adequately reduce and control the costs of such key components, we will be unable to realize manufacturing costs targets, which could reduce the market adoption of our products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers, and materially and adversely impact our brand, business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

Adverse conditions in the industries we target or the global economy more generally could have adverse effects on our results of operations.

While we make our strategic planning decisions based on the assumption that the markets we are targeting will grow, our business is dependent, in large part on, and directly affected by, business cycles and other factors affecting the robotics, industrial automation, smart infrastructure, and transportation industries and global economy generally. Our target markets are highly cyclical and depend on general economic conditions and other factors, including consumer spending and preferences, changes in interest rates and credit availability, consumer confidence, inflation, environmental impact, governmental incentives and regulatory requirements, political volatility, labor relations issues, trade agreements and other factors.

For example, general inflation in the United States, Europe and other geographies has risen significantly in recent years. General inflation, including rising prices for inputs and rising wages, as well as rising interest rates negatively impact our business by increasing our operating costs. General inflation also negatively impacts our business by decreasing the capital for our customers to deploy to purchase our products. Inflation may cause our customers to reduce or delay orders for our products thereby causing a decrease in sales. Increased instability relating to this higher inflation as well as rising interest rates may enhance volatility in currency exchange rates, limit our suppliers’ and customers’ access to credit and limit our ability to access debt and equity financing. These uncertainties may make it difficult for us and our suppliers and customers to accurately plan future business activities and materially adversely impact our operating results and financial condition.

Our future success depends in part on recruiting and retaining key personnel and if we fail to do so, it may be more difficult for us to execute our business strategy. We are currently a small organization and may need to hire additional qualified personnel to effectively implement our strategic plan.

Our success depends on our ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified management, technical, manufacturing, engineering and sales personnel. In particular, our success may depend on our ability to recruit and retain management personnel who are qualified to manage a public company. We are highly dependent on our senior management, including our founders, Angus Pacala and Mark Frichtl. If any of such persons left, our business could be harmed. All of our U.S. based employees are “at-will” employees. The loss of the services of one or more of our key employees could delay or have an impact on the successful commercialization of our products. We do not maintain key man insurance.

Our ability to successfully execute on our strategic plan depends in part on our ability to continue to appropriately build our organization and hire qualified personnel, especially with engineering, sales, technical, and manufacturing expertise. Competition for qualified personnel is especially severe in the San Francisco Bay Area. We may not be able to attract and retain qualified personnel on acceptable terms given the competition for such personnel. If we are unsuccessful in our recruitment and retention efforts, it may adversely affect our business and our growth prospects.

Some of our employees are employed by professional employer organizations which may have unexpected costs that could adversely impact our business.

We contract with non-US professional employer organizations (“PEOs”), to administer our human resources, payroll and employee benefits functions for some of our subsidiaries’ employees outside of the United States. Although our subsidiaries recruit and select these employees, their employment relationship is with the relevant PEO. Accordingly, these employees are compensated through the PEO, are governed by the work policies created by the PEO and receive their annual wage statements and other payroll-related reports from the PEO. In addition, some of these employees may receive stock compensation directly from the Company. The PEO relationship streamlines hiring and employee maintenance, and enables management to focus on issues other than payroll administration, but this relationship also exposes us to some risks. For example, if the PEO is unable to or otherwise fails to adequately withhold or pay employer taxes or to comply with other applicable laws, we may be held liable for such violations notwithstanding any indemnification provisions provided to us by the PEOs. In certain non-US jurisdictions, despite the PEO relationship, there is a risk that the employee may nonetheless be deemed our direct employee and that the Company may be deemed to have a permanent operation in a non-US jurisdiction. Court and administrative proceedings related to matters of employment tax, labor law and other laws applicable to PEO arrangements could distract management from our business and cause us to incur significant expense. If we were held liable for violations by PEOs, such monetary penalties may adversely affect our profitability and could negatively affect our business and results of operations.

If we choose to acquire or invest in new businesses, products, or technologies, such acquisitions or investments may not be completed or result in the anticipated benefits and may present risks not originally contemplated, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, consolidated results of operations and consolidated financial condition.

Our success depends on our ability to enhance and broaden our product offerings in response to changing customer demands, competitive pressures and advances in technologies. Failure to successfully identify, complete, manage and integrate acquisitions could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and could cause our stock price to decline. We continue to search for viable acquisition candidates or strategic transactions that would expand our market sector and/or global presence, as well as additional products appropriate for current distribution channels. Accordingly, we have previously pursued and may in the future pursue the acquisition of new businesses, products or technologies instead of developing them internally. Our future success will depend, in part, upon our ability to manage the expanded business following these acquisitions, including challenges related to the management and monitoring of new operations and associated increased costs and complexity associated with such acquisitions. For example, in February 2023, we completed the Velodyne Merger and, in October 2021, we completed the acquisition of Sense. In connection with any acquisitions, we could issue additional equity securities, which would dilute our stockholders, incur substantial debt to fund the acquisitions or assume significant liabilities.

Acquisitions involve many and diverse risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with conduction due diligence, problems integrating the purchased operations, assets, technologies or products, unanticipated costs, liabilities, and economic, political, legal and regulatory challenges due to our inexperience operating in new regions or countries, inability to achieve anticipated synergies, overpaying for acquisitions, invalid sales assumptions underlying potential acquisitions, issues maintaining uniform standards, procedures, controls and policies, diversion of management attention, adverse effects on existing business relationships or acquired company business relationships, risks associated with entering new markets, potential loss of key employees of acquired businesses, increased legal, accounting and compliance costs, and failure to successfully integrate acquired companies, or retain key personnel from the acquired company. Acquisitions may divert our attention from our core business. Acquisitions may require us to record goodwill and non-amortizable intangible assets that will be subject to testing on a regular basis and potential period impairment charges, incur amortization expenses related to certain intangible assets, and incur write offs and restructuring and other related expenses, any of which could harm our operating results and financial condition.

We compete with other companies for these opportunities, and we may be unable to consummate such acquisitions or other strategic transactions on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. In addition, acquired businesses may have ongoing or potential liabilities, legal claims (including tort and/or personal injury claims) or adverse operating issues that we fail to discover through due diligence prior to the acquisition. Even if we are aware of such liabilities, claims or issues, we may not be able to accurately estimate the magnitude of the related liabilities and damages. In particular, to the extent that prior owners of any acquired businesses or properties failed to comply with or otherwise violated applicable laws or regulations, failed to fulfill their contractual obligations to their customers, or failed to satisfy legal obligations to employees or third parties, we, as the successor, may be financially responsible for these violations and failures and may suffer reputational harm or otherwise be adversely affected. Acquisitions also frequently result in the recording of goodwill and other intangible assets which are subject to potential impairment in the future that could harm our financial results. If we were to issue additional equity in connection with such acquisitions, this may dilute our stockholders.

Legal and Regulatory Risks Related to Our Business

Our products are frequently used in applications that are subject to evolving regulations and standards. Similarly, our operations are subject to evolving regulations and laws.

Our customers may use our products for regulated and standardized applications that require our products to comply with regulations and standards that are applicable to both our products and to those industries and applications, including functional safety and product reliability standards. New regulations and industry standards may be adopted that result in delays or cancellations of programs. If we decide not to pursue or fail to achieve these regulatory or industry certifications, we may lose existing or potential commercial opportunities or be exposed to legal liability from regulators.

Similarly, our operations are subject to an evolving regulatory environment. New and changing laws, regulations, executive orders and enforcement priorities can also create uncertainty about how such laws and regulations will be interpreted and applied, which may decrease customer spending, increase our costs or otherwise adversely impact our business and results of operations.

We are subject to governmental export and import controls and economic sanctions laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Our products and solutions are subject to certain U.S. and foreign export controls, trade sanctions, and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls. U.S. export control laws and regulations and economic sanctions prohibit the shipment of certain products and services to countries, governments, and persons targeted by U.S. sanctions. Even though we take precautions to prevent our productions and solutions from being provided to entities subject to these restrictions, our products could find their way to such prohibited entities. Any such provision could have negative consequences, including government investigations, penalties, or reputational harm.

In addition, complying with export control and sanctions regulations for a particular sale may be time-consuming and create delays in the introduction of our products and solutions in some international markets, and, in some cases, prevent the export of our software and services to some countries altogether. Exports of our products and technology must be made in compliance with these laws and regulations. If a license is required from a government agency prior to sale, no exports may occur until the appropriate approvals are obtained. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, penalties could be imposed, including substantial monetary fines and/or denial of export privileges. In addition, in extreme cases responsible employees or managers can be held criminally liable for such violations.

Changes to trade policy, tariffs and import/export regulations may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Any new export or import restrictions, new legislation or shifting approaches in the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or changes in global, political, regulatory and economic conditions affecting U.S. trade, manufacturing, development or investment, could have an adverse effect on business. In recent months, the U.S. has instituted or proposed changes in trade policies that include the negotiation or termination of trade agreements, the imposition of higher tariffs on imports into the U.S., economic sanctions on individuals, corporations or countries, and other government regulations affecting trade between the U.S. and other countries where we conduct our business. A number of other nations have proposed or instituted similar measures directed at trade with the United States in response. As a result of these developments, there may be greater restrictions and economic disincentives on international trade that could adversely affect our business. Any tariffs or sanctions that impact the Company’s custom-made components, such as our micro-optics or custom SoC, may disproportionately impact our business, prospects and operations. As additional trade-related policies are instituted, we may need to modify our business operations to comply and adapt to such developments, which may be time-consuming and expensive or which we may not be able to do successfully at all.

Moreover, the potential for further or new tariffs or trade restrictions between the United States and Thailand, China, Canada, Europe and Mexico, and the resulting environment of retaliatory trade or other practices could materially harm our ability to obtain necessary materials or manufactured products. For example, tariffs on certain Canadian or Chinese origin goods may impact the cost of material and components that we import or that are imported on our behalf by our manufacturing partners or suppliers. Similarly, the majority of our end-products are manufactured in Thailand and any increased costs of manufacturing there, such as tariffs on goods imported from Thailand, would materially adversely affect our operations. The indirect impact of inflationary pressure on costs throughout our supply chain and the direct impact, for example, on costs of material and components we import or that are imported on our behalf by our manufacturing partners or suppliers from countries adversely impacted by trade relations with the United States, may result in higher input costs and lower margins on certain products we sell, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, results of operations and cash flows.

We have been and may in the future become involved in legal and regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes, which could have a material adverse effect on our profitability and consolidated financial position.

We have been and may in the future be, from time to time, involved in litigation, regulatory proceedings and commercial or contractual disputes and these matters may be significant. These matters may include, without limitation, disputes with our distributors, suppliers and customers, intellectual property claims, stockholder litigation, government investigations, class action lawsuits, personal injury claims, environmental issues, customs and value-added tax disputes and employment and tax issues. In addition, we have in the past and could face in the future a variety of labor and employment claims against us, which could include but is not limited to general discrimination, wage and hour, privacy, ERISA or disability claims. In such matters, government agencies or private parties may seek to recover from us large, indeterminate amounts in penalties or monetary damages (including, in some cases, treble or punitive damages) or seek to limit our operations in some way. These types of lawsuits could require significant management time and attention or could involve substantial legal liability, adverse regulatory outcomes, or substantial expenses to defend. Often these cases raise complex factual and legal issues and create risks and uncertainties.

For descriptions of legal proceedings to which we are party, including proceedings assumed in connection with the Velodyne Merger, see Note 9. Commitments and Contingencies included in the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We have in the past and could in the future be forced to expend significant resources in the defense of these lawsuits or future ones, and we may not prevail. No assurances can be given that any proceedings and claims will not have a material adverse impact on our operating results and consolidated financial position or that our available insurance will mitigate this impact.

We are subject to, and must remain in compliance with, numerous laws and governmental regulations concerning the manufacturing, use, distribution and sale of our products. Some of our customers also require that we comply with their own unique requirements relating to these matters.

We manufacture and sell products that contain components, which may contain materials that are subject to government regulation in both the locations where we manufacture and assemble our products, as well as the locations where we sell our products. Since we operate on a global basis, this is a complex process which requires continual monitoring of regulations and an ongoing compliance process to ensure that we and our suppliers are in compliance with existing regulations in each market where we operate. If there is an unanticipated new regulation that significantly impacts our use and sourcing of various components or requires more expensive components, that regulation could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. If we are not currently in compliance with existing regulations, or we fail to adhere to new regulations or fail to continually monitor the updates, we may incur costs in remedying our non-compliance and it may disrupt our operations. In addition, current or proposed regulations may adversely impact the availability of supplies needed to manufacture our products. For example, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act effectively bans all products from China’s Xinjiang province due to concerns that the goods were produced with forced labor, which is having adverse impacts on global supply chains. In such circumstances, we may also be subject to litigation, lose customers, suffer negative publicity and our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We and our vendors are subject to various environmental laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us and cause delays in expanding production facilities.

Environmental pollution and climate change have been the subject of significant legislative and regulatory efforts on a global basis, and we believe this will continue both in scope and in the number of countries participating. In addition, as climate change issues become more prevalent, foreign, federal, state and local governments and our customers have increased their focus on environmental sustainability, which has resulted in, and may result in new, regulations and customer requirements, which could materially adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition. If we are unable to effectively address concerns about environmental impact, our reputation could be negatively impacted, and our business, results of operations or financial condition could suffer. These regulations and requirements apply to our vendors and suppliers, as well. To the extent compliance with, or the effect of, these regulations and requirements on vendors and suppliers result in their inability to deliver their products to us on time or at all, this could materially adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition. For example, the State of California has enacted a number of laws that require reporting on carbon neutrality claims and use of carbon removal credits and direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks. The SEC also adopted and then stayed rules that would require companies to provide certain climate-related disclosures. Additional local, state, federal and international laws and rules with respect to sustainability and environmental matters which have been passed or proposed may be enacted in the future and the extent and scope of their requirements and impact on our business are unknown. Such rules, as well as other ESG and sustainability-related regulation and legislation, may require us to incur significant additional costs to comply, including the implementation of significant additional internal controls and impose increased oversight obligations on our management and board of directors.

Any new or modified environmental regulations or laws may increase the cost of raw materials or components we use in our products. Environmental regulations require us to continually reduce product energy usage, monitor and exclude an expanding list of restricted substances and to participate in required recovery and recycling of our products. Environmental and health and safety laws and regulations can be complex, and we have limited experience complying with them. Capital and operating expenses needed to comply with environmental laws and regulations can be significant, and violations may result in substantial fines and penalties, third-party damages, suspension of production or a cessation of our operations.

If contamination is found at properties we operate or formerly operated, this may result in liability for us under environmental laws and regulations, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which can impose liability for the full amount of remediation-related costs without regard to fault. Costs of complying with environmental laws and regulations and any claims concerning noncompliance, or liability with respect to contamination in the future, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or operating results.

Failure to meet evolving and changing environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) expectations or standards or to achieve our ESG goals could adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition, and stock price.

We experience pressure to make commitments or set goals or targets relating to ESG matters that affect companies in our industry, including the design and implementation of specific risk mitigation strategic initiatives relating to environmental sustainability. If we are not effective in addressing ESG matters affecting our industry, such as greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks, renewable energy, water stewardship, waste management, diversity and inclusion, responsible sourcing and supply chain, human rights, and social responsibility, among other issues, or setting and meeting relevant sustainability commitments, goals, or targets, our reputation may suffer. As we continue to develop our voluntary ESG program and disclosures, there can be no assurance that regulators, customers, investors, employees, and other stakeholders will determine that these programs and disclosures are sufficiently robust, and we cannot assure that our stakeholders will agree with our ESG strategies. In addition, there can be no assurance that we will be able to attain any announced goals related to our sustainability program, as statements regarding our sustainability goals reflect our current plans and aspirations and are not guarantees that we will be able to achieve them within the timelines we announce or at all. Furthermore, both advocates and opponents of such ESG matters are increasingly resorting to a range of activism forms, including media campaigns, shareholder proposals, and litigation to advance their perspectives. There has similarly been an increase in activism and litigation alleging that corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs may discriminate against certain groups. Changing stakeholder expectations, changing laws, evolving voluntary and regulatory disclosure standards, and our efforts to manage and report on ESG issues present operational, regulatory, reputational, financial, legal, and other risks, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our business, including on our reputation and stock price.

We are subject to U.S. and foreign anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws. We can face criminal liability and other serious consequences for violations, which can harm our business.

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the Money Laundering Control Act 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 and 1957, and other anti-bribery and anti-money laundering laws in countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, contractors and other collaborators from authorizing, promising, offering or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or anything else of value to recipients in the public or private sector and failing to prevent bribery, and require that we keep accurate books and records and maintain internal accounting controls designed to prevent any such actions. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, agents, contractors and other collaborators, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities. Any violations of the laws and regulations described above may result in substantial civil and criminal fines and penalties, imprisonment, the loss of export or import privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm and other consequences.

As we increase our international cross-border business and expand our operations abroad, we may continue to engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our services and to obtain necessary permits, licenses and other regulatory approvals. In addition, we or our third-party intermediaries may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. We cannot assure you that all of our employees and agents will not take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible. As we increase our international business, our risks under these laws may increase.

Detecting, investigating and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources and attention from management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption or anti-bribery laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties, injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas are received or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our business, operating results and financial condition could be materially harmed.

Our business may be adversely affected if it fails to comply with the regulatory requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or the Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”).

As a lidar technology company, we are subject to the Electronic Product Radiation Control Provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. These requirements are enforced by the FDA. Electronic product radiation includes laser technology. Regulations governing these products are intended to protect the public from hazardous or unnecessary exposure. Manufacturers are required to certify in product labeling and in reports to the FDA that their products comply with applicable performance standards as well as maintain manufacturing, testing, and distribution records for their products. Failure to comply with these requirements could result in enforcement action by the FDA, which could require us to cease distribution of our products, recall or remediate products already distributed to customers, or subject us to FDA enforcement.

We are exposed to risks related to the use of AI tools by us and others.

Although we are evaluating and, where we believe appropriate, incorporating the use of AI tools into our operations, such as the use of generative AI tools to assist in the development of code, our use of such tools may subject us to significant competitive, legal, regulatory and other risks, and there can be no assurance that our use of AI tools will enhance our business operations or result in a benefit to us. Our competitors may be more successful in their use of AI tools, including by developing superior products or improving their operations with the assistance of AI. Additionally, there could be adverse impacts from inaccurate or flawed algorithms. Our use of AI tools could also result in the loss of confidential information or intellectual property or an inability to claim or enforce intellectual property rights, as well as subject us to risks related to intellectual property infringement or misappropriation, data privacy, cybersecurity, and the unauthorized use of Company data. The jurisdictions in which we conduct business have adopted and may adopt laws and regulations related to AI, which could cause us to incur greater compliance costs, limit our use of AI tools, or subject us to regulatory investigations and actions or legal liabilities.

Failures, or perceived failures, to comply with privacy, data protection, and information security requirements in the variety of jurisdictions in which we operate may adversely impact our business, and such legal requirements are evolving, uncertain and may require improvements in, or changes to, our policies and operations.

We receive, store, handle, transmit, use, and otherwise process business information and information related to individuals, including from and about actual and prospective customers, employees, business contacts, service providers, and others. We also depend on a number of third-party vendors in relation to the operation of our business, a number of which process data on our behalf. Our current and potential future operations and sales subject us to laws and regulations addressing privacy and the collection, use, storage, disclosure, transfer, processing, and protection of a variety of types of data. For example, we are subject to General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (“FADP”), and the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), each of which provide for potentially material penalties for non-compliance. These regimes, among other things, impose data security requirements, disclosure requirements, and restrictions on data collection, uses, and sharing that may impact our operations and the development of our business. The full impact of these privacy regimes, and other privacy, data protection, and information security laws we may be subject to, on our business is rapidly evolving across jurisdictions and remains uncertain at this time.

Since these data security regimes are evolving, uncertain, and complex, especially for a global business like ours, we may need to update or enhance our compliance measures as our products, markets and customer demands further develop, and these updates or enhancements may require implementation costs. In addition, we may not be able to monitor and react to all legal developments in a timely manner. Any compliance measures we do adopt may prove ineffective. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to comply with current and future regulatory or customer-driven privacy, data protection, and information security requirements, or to prevent or mitigate security breaches, cyber-attacks, or improper access to, use of, or disclosure of data, or any security issues or cyber-attacks affecting us, could result in significant liability, costs (including the costs of mitigation and recovery), and a material loss of revenue resulting from the adverse impact on our reputation and brand, loss of proprietary information and data, disruption to our business and relationships, and diminished ability to retain or attract customers and business partners. Such events may result in governmental enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties or adverse publicity, and could cause customers and business partners to lose trust in us, which could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, result of operations, financial condition, and business.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

We may not be able to adequately protect or enforce our intellectual property rights or prevent competitors or other unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our technology.

Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain patents and other intellectual property rights covering our technology and products, and to maintain adequate legal protection for our technology and products in the United States and worldwide. We rely on patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our proprietary rights, all of which provide only limited protections.

We can make no assurances whether any of our pending patent applications will mature into issued patents, or that any of our pending trademark applications will be registered, in a manner that gives us any or adequate defensive protection or competitive advantages. We also do not know whether any patents issued to us or any trademarks registered by us will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. Our portfolio of currently-issued patents and registered trademarks, and any patents that may be issued, any copyrights and trademarks that may be registered in the future, may not provide sufficiently broad protections to us, or may not prove to be enforceable in actions against alleged infringers. We cannot be certain that the actions we have undertaken to protect our technology and products will prevent unauthorized use of our technology or the reverse engineering of our products. Moreover, others may independently develop technologies and products that compete with ours, or infringe our intellectual property.

We have filed for patents and trademarks in the United States and in certain international jurisdictions, but such protections may not be available, and we may not have applied for protections in all countries in which we operate or sell our products.

Though we may have obtained intellectual property and related proprietary rights in various jurisdictions, it may prove difficult to enforce our intellectual property rights in practice. Discovering and protecting against unauthorized use of our intellectual property, products and other proprietary rights is expensive and difficult, particularly internationally. We believe that our patents are foundational in the area of lidar products, and intend to enforce our intellectual property rights. Competitors and other unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or reverse engineer our lidar technology and other aspects of our solutions that we consider proprietary. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our intellectual property rights, to prevent unauthorized parties from copying or reverse engineering our products, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others or to block the importation of infringing products into the United States or other markets. Failure to adequately protect our intellectual property rights could result in our competitors offering infringing products, potentially resulting in the loss of some of our competitive advantage, market share and a decrease in our revenue, which would adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.

Claims that we are infringing third-party intellectual property, whether successful or not, could subject us to costly and time-consuming litigation or expensive licenses, and adversely affect our business.

Any intellectual property and related contractual litigation, if it is initiated in the future by us or a third-party, would result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could materially and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Such claims may also divert management resources and attention away from other business efforts and force us to acquire intellectual property rights and licenses, which may involve substantial royalty or other payments that may not be acceptable to us. Further, a party making such a claim against us, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages or such a party could obtain an injunction. An adverse determination also could invalidate our intellectual property rights and adversely affect our ability to offer our products to our customers and may require that we procure or develop substitute products that do not infringe, which could require significant effort and expense. Even if we obtain favorable outcomes in any such litigation, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies, or may have incurred costs that threaten our financial stability. Assertions of our attempts to enforce our rights against third parties could also lead these third parties to assert their own intellectual property or other rights against us or seek invalidation or a narrowed scope of our rights, in whole or in part. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.

Lidar is a heavily populated intellectual property field, in which many companies, both within and outside of the lidar industry, hold patents covering lidar products and other adjacent technologies. In addition to patents, companies in the lidar industry typically rely on copyrights and trade secrets to protect their technology. As a result, there has been frequent litigation in the lidar industry based on allegations of patent infringement, misappropriation or other violations of intellectual property rights. We have, and in the future may, receive inquiries from other intellectual property holders and we may become subject to claims that we infringe others’ intellectual property rights, particularly as our market presence increases, as our products expand to new use cases and geographies, and as we face increasing competition. In addition, parties may claim that our name and the branding of our products infringe their trademark rights in certain countries or territories. If such a claim were to prevail, we may have to change the names of and branding of our products in the affected territories which would be costly and could cause market confusion.

We currently have various agreements in effect pursuant to which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our customers, suppliers, and other partners from damages and costs which may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents or other intellectual property rights. The scope of these indemnity obligations vary, but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. Our insurance does not typically cover intellectual property infringement claims. A claim that our products infringe a third-party’s intellectual property rights, even if untrue, could adversely affect our relationships with our customers and deter future customers from purchasing our products. Our defense of intellectual property rights claims brought against us, or our customers, suppliers or partners, with or without merit, could be time-consuming and expensive to litigate or settle.

Even if we are not a party to any litigation between a customer and a third-party relating to infringement of its products, an adverse outcome in any such litigation could make it more difficult for us to defend our products against intellectual property infringement claims in any subsequent litigation matter in which we are a named party. Any of these results could adversely affect our brand and operating results.

Any intellectual property and related contractual litigation, if it is initiated in the future by us or a third-party, would result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, either of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Such claims may also divert management resources and attention away from other business efforts and force us to acquire intellectual property rights and licenses, which may involve substantial royalty or other payments that may not be acceptable to us. Further, a party making such a claim against us, if successful, could secure a judgment that requires us to pay substantial damages or such a party could obtain an injunction. An adverse determination also could invalidate our intellectual property rights and adversely affect our ability to offer our products to our customers and may require that we procure or develop substitute products that do not infringe, which could require significant effort and expense. Even if we obtain favorable outcomes in any such litigation, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies, or may have incurred costs that threaten our financial stability. Assertions of our rights against third parties could also lead third parties to assert their own intellectual property or other rights against us or seek invalidation or a narrowed scope of our rights, in whole or in part. Any of these events could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.

Our intellectual property applications may not issue or be registered, which may have a material adverse effect on our ability to prevent others from commercially exploiting products similar to ours.

We cannot be certain that we are the first inventor of the subject matter to which we have filed any particular patent application, or if we are the first party to file such a patent application. If another party has filed a patent application to, or otherwise publicly disclosed, subject matter that we are seeking to protect in a given patent application, we may not be entitled to the protection sought by the patent application. We also cannot be certain whether the claims included in a patent application will ultimately be granted as an issued patent since the patent office of the jurisdiction in which a patent application is filed may rule that the subject matter we are seeking to patent is not novel or is obvious or otherwise non-inventive or rule that the patent application and/or claims of the patent application do not comply with one or more other requirements of the patent laws of the jurisdiction. Further, the scope of protection of issued patent claims is often difficult to determine. As a result, we cannot be certain that our issued patents will afford protection against competitors with similar technology. In addition, our competitors may design around our issued patents, which may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

In addition to patented technology, we rely on our unpatented proprietary technology, copyrights, trade secrets, proprietary processes and know-how.

We rely on proprietary information (including, for example, trade secrets, know-how and confidential information) to protect intellectual property that may not be patentable or subject to copyright or trademark protection, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. We may seek to protect this proprietary information by entering into confidentiality agreements, or consulting, services or employment agreements that contain non-disclosure and non-use provisions with our employees, consultants, contractors and third parties. We may fail, however, to enter into the necessary agreements, and even if properly executed and entered into, these agreements may be breached or may otherwise fail to prevent disclosure, third-party infringement or misappropriation of our proprietary information, may be limited as to their term and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure or use of proprietary information. Additionally, we have limited control over the protection of trade secrets used by our current or future manufacturing partners and suppliers and could lose future trade secret protection if any unauthorized disclosure of such information occurs. In addition, our proprietary information may otherwise become known or be independently developed by our competitors or other third parties. To the extent that our employees, consultants, contractors, advisors and other third parties use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain protection for our proprietary information could adversely affect our competitive business position. Furthermore, laws regarding trade secret rights in certain markets where we operate may afford little or no protection to our trade secrets.

We also rely on security measures, both physical and electronic, to protect our proprietary information, but we cannot provide assurance that these security measures will not be breached or provide adequate protection for our property. There is a risk that third parties may obtain and improperly utilize our proprietary information to our competitive disadvantage. Also, we may not be able to detect or prevent the unauthorized use of such information or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce our intellectual property rights.

We may be subject to damages resulting from claims that we or our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of our employees’ former employers.

We may be subject to claims that we or our employees have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed trade secrets or other proprietary information of one or more of an employee’s former employers. Litigation may be necessary to defend us against these claims. If we fail in defending such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. A loss of key personnel or their work product could hamper or prevent our ability to commercialize our products, which could severely harm our business. Even if we are successful in defending against any such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and demand on management resources.

Risks Related to Being a Public Company and our Capital Structure

We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and may identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, which may result in material misstatements of our consolidated financial statements, cause us to fail to meet our periodic reporting obligations, or cause our access to the capital markets to be impaired.

We identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. Our failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could result in errors in our consolidated financial statements that could result in a restatement of our financial statements and could cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations, any of which could diminish investor confidence in us and cause a decline in the price of our common stock. Additionally, ineffective internal control could expose us to an increased risk of financial reporting fraud and the misappropriation of assets and subject us to potential delisting from the stock exchange on which we list or to other regulatory investigations and civil or criminal sanctions.

We did not design and maintain an effective control environment commensurate with our financial reporting requirements. Specifically, we did not maintain a sufficient complement of personnel with an appropriate degree of internal controls and accounting knowledge, experience, and training commensurate with our accounting and reporting requirements. This material weakness contributed to the following additional material weakness:

• We did not design and maintain effective controls over the period-end financial reporting process to ensure, for other than journal entries, that segregation of duties (SOD) conflicts were identified, reviewed and mitigated by appropriately designed mitigating controls as needed to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures.

The material weakness related to the control environment resulted in adjustments to several account balances and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, adjustments to the equity and warrant liabilities accounts and related disclosures in the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2021, and an immaterial adjustment which was recorded prior to the issuance of the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements as of June 30, 2024. The material weakness related to segregation of duties did not result in a material misstatement to the consolidated financial statements.

Additionally, each of these material weaknesses could result in a misstatement of account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to the annual or interim consolidated financial statements that would not be prevented or detected.

As it relates to the above material weaknesses that continued to exist as of December 31, 2024, our management is committed and continues to make progress to improve our internal control over financial reporting. We continued implementation of a plan to remediate the control deficiencies that led to the above material weaknesses. These remediation measures are ongoing and include the following:

• Improve internal controls to ensure that segregation of duties (SOD) conflicts are timely identified, reviewed and mitigated by appropriately designed mitigating controls and procedures. This includes periodic monitoring of changes in roles and responsibilities that could impact SOD conflicts within the period-end financial reporting process.
• Continuing to recruit personnel with appropriate internal controls, accounting knowledge and experience commensurate with our accounting and reporting requirements, in addition to engaging and utilizing third party consultants and specialists. Our management also continued to reallocate and align roles and responsibilities within the accounting team to optimize and leverage the skills and experience of various personnel.
• Continuing to provide internal control training for personnel responsible for implementing internal controls for the Company.

These investments in resources have improved the stability of our accounting organization. While significant progress has been made in response to the material weaknesses, time is needed to demonstrate sustainability as it relates to our internal control over financial reporting and improvements made to our complement of resources, including demonstrating sustained operating effectiveness of our internal controls related to SOD. We are committed to continuous improvement and will continue to diligently review our internal control over financial reporting.

As a public company, we are required pursuant to Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022 (the “Sarbanes Oxley Act”) to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for each annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. This assessment includes disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in internal control over financial reporting. In the future, to the extent we are considered an accelerated filer or a large accelerated filer, our independent registered public accounting firm will also be required pursuant to Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in each annual report on Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC. We are also required to disclose material changes made in our internal control over financial reporting on a quarterly basis. Failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could potentially subject us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC, the stock exchange on which our securities are listed or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Certain of our warrants are accounted for as liabilities and the changes in value of such warrants could have a material effect on our financial results.

We have determined to classify the private placement warrants assumed from CLA as derivative liabilities measured at fair value, with changes in fair value each period reported in earnings. Due to the recurring fair value measurement, we recognize non-cash gains or losses on the private placement warrants each reporting period and the amount of such gains or losses has been material and could continue to be material in the future. Our accounting treatment of our warrants is based on its current interpretation of the SEC Statement and other guidance and may change in light of any further interpretive guidance, as may be applicable.

There can be no assurance that we, our common stock or our warrants will be able to comply with the continued listing standards of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”).

If we fail to satisfy the continued listing requirements of Nasdaq, such as the corporate governance requirements or the minimum share price requirement, Nasdaq may take steps to delist our securities, including our warrants. Such a delisting would likely have a negative effect on the price of the securities and would impair stockholders’ ability to trade in the Company’s securities. In the event of a delisting, we can provide no assurance that any action taken by us to restore compliance with listing requirements would allow our securities to become listed again, stabilize the market price or improve the liquidity of our securities, prevent our securities from dropping below the Nasdaq minimum share price requirement or prevent future non-compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements. Additionally, if our securities are not listed on, or become delisted from the Nasdaq, for any reason, and are quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board, an inter-dealer automated quotation system for equity securities that is not a national securities exchange, the liquidity and price of our securities may be more limited than if we were quoted or listed on the Nasdaq or another national securities exchange. If our securities become illiquid, stockholders may be unable to trade their securities unless a market can be established or sustained, and similarly if investors are precluded from trading their securities, it could have adverse consequences on our ability to raise more capital.

Amazon owns a warrant to purchase a significant portion of our outstanding common stock, and it may in the future be able to influence the Company’s corporate decisions.

Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”), holds a warrant (“Amazon Warrant”) to acquire, following customary antidilution adjustments, up to an aggregate of 3,267,890 (2,160,304 of which are currently vested) shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $50.64 per share, representing 6.1% of our outstanding common stock as of March 17, 2025. We assumed the Amazon Warrant as part of the Velodyne Merger. The exercise price and the warrant shares issuable upon exercise of the Amazon Warrant are subject to further antidilution adjustments, including in the event we make certain sales of common stock (or securities exercisable or convertible into or exchangeable for shares of our common stock) at a price less than the exercise price of the Amazon Warrant. If Amazon were to exercise the Amazon Warrant to purchase significant amounts of our common stock, it may be able to exert significant control over us. It also may have interests that differ from other stockholders and may vote or otherwise act in ways with which we or other stockholders disagree or that may be adverse to the interests of our stockholders.

The price of our common stock and warrants may be volatile.

The price of our common stock, as well as our warrants, may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, including:

• changes in the industries in which we and our customers operate;
• developments involving our competitors;
• changes in laws and regulations affecting our business;
• variations in our operating performance and the performance of our competitors in general;
• actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly or annual operating results;
• publication of research reports by securities analysts about us or our competitors or our industry;
• the public’s reaction to our press releases, our other public announcements and our filings with the SEC;
• actions by stockholders, including the sale by significant stockholders of any of their shares of our common stock;
• additions and departures of key personnel;
• commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving our Company;
• changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt;
• the volume of shares of our common stock available for public sale; and
• general economic, political and social conditions, such as the effects of public health crises, recessions, interest rates, local and national elections, tariffs, fuel prices, international currency fluctuations, corruption, political instability and acts of war or terrorism.

These market and industry factors may materially reduce the market price of our common stock and warrants regardless of our operating performance.

We do not intend to pay cash dividends for the foreseeable future.

We currently intend to retain our future earnings, if any, to finance the further development and expansion of our business and do not intend to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, restrictions contained in future agreements and financing instruments, business prospects and such other factors as our board of directors deems relevant.

If analysts do not publish research about our business or if they publish inaccurate or unfavorable research, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that analysts publish about our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our common stock would likely decline. If few analysts cover us, demand for our common stock could decrease and our common stock price and trading volume may decline. Similar results may occur if one or more of these analysts stop covering us in the future or fail to publish reports on us regularly.

Holders of our publicly traded warrants will not be permitted to exercise their warrants unless the warrants remain registered or certain exemptions are available.

If the issuance of the common stock upon exercise of our publicly traded warrants is not registered, qualified or exempt from registration or qualification under the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws, holders of warrants will not be entitled to exercise such warrants and such warrants may have no value and expire worthless. In such event, holders who acquired their warrants as part of a purchase of units will have paid the full unit purchase price solely for the common stock included in the units.

If the common stock issuable upon exercise of the publicly traded warrants are not registered under the Securities Act, under the terms of the warrant agreement, holders of warrants who seek to exercise their warrants will not be permitted to do so for cash and, instead, will be required to do so on a cashless basis in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act or another exemption.

In no event will warrants be exercisable for cash or on a cashless basis, and we will not be obligated to issue any shares to holders seeking to exercise their warrants, unless the issuance of the shares upon such exercise is registered or qualified under the securities laws of the state of the exercising holder, or an exemption from registration or qualification is available.

If our common stock are at the time of any exercise of a warrant not listed on a national securities exchange such that they satisfy the definition of “covered securities” under Section 18(b)(1) of the Securities Act, we may, at our option, not permit holders of warrants who seek to exercise their warrants to do so for cash and, instead, require them to do so on a cashless basis in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act; in the event we so elect, we will not be required to file or maintain in effect a registration statement or register or qualify the shares underlying the warrants under applicable state securities laws, and in the event we do not so elect, we will use our best efforts to register or qualify the shares underlying the warrants under applicable state securities laws to the extent an exemption is not available.

In no event will we be required to net cash settle any warrant, or issue securities (other than upon a cashless exercise as described above) or other compensation in exchange for the warrants in the event that we are unable to register or qualify the shares underlying the warrants under the Securities Act or applicable state securities laws.

Holders of our publicly traded warrants may only be able to exercise such warrants on a “cashless basis” under certain circumstances, and if they do so, they will receive fewer shares of common stock from such exercise than if they were to exercise such warrants for cash.

The warrant agreements provide that in the following circumstances holders of warrants who seek to exercise their warrants will not be permitted to do for cash and will, instead, be required to do so on a cashless basis in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act: (i) if the common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants are not registered under the Securities Act in accordance with the terms of the warrant agreement; (ii) if we have so elected and the common stock are at the time of any exercise of a warrant not listed on a national securities exchange such that they satisfy the definition of “covered securities” under Section 18(b)(1) of the Securities Act; and (iii) if we have so elected and we call the public warrants for redemption. If holder exercises public warrants on a cashless basis, they would pay the warrant exercise price by surrendering the warrants for that number of common stock equal to the quotient obtained by dividing (x) the product of the number of common stock underlying the warrants, multiplied by the excess of the “fair market value” of our common stock (as defined in the next sentence) over the exercise price of the warrants by (y) the fair market value. The “fair market value” is the average reported closing price of the common stock for the 10 trading days ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the notice of exercise is received by the warrant agent or on which the notice of redemption is sent to the holders of warrants, as applicable. As a result, an impacted warrant holder would receive fewer shares of common stock from such exercise than if you were to exercise such warrants for cash.

We may amend the terms of the publicly traded warrants in a manner that may be adverse to holders of public warrants with the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants. As a result, the exercise price of the publicly traded warrants could be increased, the exercise period could be shortened and the number of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant could be decreased, all without warrant holder approval.

Our publicly traded warrants were issued in registered forms under warrant agreements between Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, as warrant agent, and us (or formerly, Velodyne). The warrant agreements provide that the terms of each class of warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder for certain limited administrative provisions, and that the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding public warrants in such class is required to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders of publicly traded warrants. Accordingly, we may amend the terms of either class of public warrants in a manner adverse to a holder of such class of public warrants if holders of at least 50% of the then outstanding public warrants in such class approve of such amendment. Although our ability to amend the terms of the public warrants with the consent of at least 50% of the then outstanding class of public warrants is unlimited, examples of such amendments could be amendments to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the warrants, convert the warrants into cash or shares, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of shares of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant.

Our warrant agreements designate the courts of the State of New York or the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York as the sole and exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that may be initiated by holders of our warrants, which could limit the ability of warrant holders to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.

Our warrant agreements for our publicly traded warrants provide that, subject to applicable law, (i) any action, proceeding or claim against us arising out of or relating in any way to the warrant agreements, including under the Securities Act, will be brought and enforced in the courts of the State of New York or the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and (ii) that we irrevocably submit to such jurisdiction, which jurisdiction shall be the exclusive forum for any such action, proceeding or claim. We will waive any objection to such exclusive jurisdiction and that such courts represent an inconvenient forum.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, these provisions of the warrant agreements will not apply to suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal district courts of the United States of America are the sole and exclusive forum. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in any of our warrants shall be deemed to have notice of and to have consented to the forum provisions in our warrant agreement. If any action, the subject matter of which is within the scope the forum provisions of the warrant agreements, is filed in a court other than a court of the State of New York or the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (a “foreign action”) in the name of any holder of our warrants, such holder shall be deemed to have consented to: (x) the personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in the State of New York in connection with any action brought in any such court to enforce the forum provisions (an “enforcement action”), and (y) having service of process made upon such warrant holder in any such enforcement action by service upon such warrant holder’s counsel in the foreign action as agent for such warrant holder.

This choice-of-forum provision may limit a warrant holder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us, which may discourage such lawsuits. Alternatively, if a court were to find this provision in our warrant agreements inapplicable or unenforceable with respect to one or more of the specified types of actions or proceedings, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such matters in other jurisdictions, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and result in a diversion of the time and resources of our management and board of directors.

We may redeem unexpired publicly traded warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to warrant holders, thereby making such warrants worthless.

We have the ability to redeem the outstanding publicly traded warrants at any time prior to their expiration. For the class of publicly traded warrants traded under the symbol “OUSTZ”, we may redeem such warrants at a price of $0.10 per warrant, provided that the closing price of our common stock equals or exceeds $180.00 per share (as adjusted for share splits, share capitalizations, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we give proper notice of such redemption to the warrant holders and provided certain other conditions are met. For the class of publicly traded warrants traded under the symbol “OUSTW”, we may redeem such warrants at a price of $0.10 per warrant, provided that the closing price of our common stock equals or exceeds $219.41 per share (as adjusted for share splits, share capitalizations, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we give proper notice of such redemption to the warrant holders and provided certain other conditions are met. If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. Redemption of the outstanding warrants could force you to (i) exercise your warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for you to do so, (ii) sell your warrants at the then-current market price when you might otherwise wish to hold your warrants or (iii) accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding warrants are called for redemption, is likely to be substantially less than the market value of your warrants. None of the private placement warrants initially issued by CLA will be redeemable by us so long as they are held by Colonnade Sponsor LLC or its permitted transferees.

Delaware law and our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws contain certain provisions, including anti-takeover provisions that limit the ability of stockholders to take certain actions and could delay or discourage takeover attempts that stockholders may consider favorable.

Our Certification of Incorporation and Bylaws and the Delaware General Corporations Law (“DGCL”) contain provisions that could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying, or preventing an acquisition that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, and therefore depress the trading price of our common stock. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to take certain actions, including electing directors who are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or taking other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. Among other things, the Certification of Incorporation and Bylaws include provisions regarding:

• providing for a classified board of directors with staggered, three-year terms;
• the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock, including “blank check” preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
• the Certificate of Incorporation prohibits cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
• the limitation of the liability of, and the indemnification of, our directors and officers;
• the ability of our board of directors to amend the Bylaws, which may allow our board of directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend the Bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
• advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which could preclude stockholders from bringing matters before annual or special meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our board of directors and also may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.

These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our board of directors or management.

The provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation requiring exclusive forum in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States for certain types of lawsuits may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against our directors and officers.

Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, and unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, in the event that the Chancery Court does not have jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware or other state courts of the State of Delaware) will be the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action, suit or proceeding brought on our behalf, (ii) any action, suit or proceeding asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or stockholders to us or our stockholders, (iii) any action, suit or proceeding arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL or our Bylaws or Certificate of Incorporation (as each may be amended from time to time), (iv) any action, suit or proceeding as to which the DGCL confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, or (v) any action, suit or proceeding asserting a claim against us or any current or former director, officer or stockholder governed by the internal affairs doctrine.

Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such Securities Act claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, the Certificate of Incorporation will also provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the federal district courts of the United States of America shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act; however, there is uncertainty as to whether a court would enforce such provision, and investors cannot waive compliance with federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Certificate of Incorporation provides that the exclusive forum provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce any cause of action arising under the Securities Act, any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. Section 27 of the Exchange Act creates exclusive federal jurisdiction over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations thereunder.

These provisions may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against our directors and officers. The enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that, in connection with any applicable action brought against us, a court could find the choice of forum provisions contained in the Certificate of Incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in such action.

We may be subject to securities litigation, class action and derivative lawsuits, which could result in substantial costs and could divert management attention away from other business concerns.

The market price of our common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Additionally, securities class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits are often brought against public companies. Even if the lawsuits are without merit, defending against these claims can result in substantial costs and divert management time and resources from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business. An adverse judgment could result in monetary damages, which could have a negative impact on our liquidity and financial condition. For a description of our legal proceedings, see Note 9. Commitments and Contingencies included in the notes to our audited financial statements included elsewhere in the Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

General Risk Factors

Our facilities in California are located near an earthquake fault and an earthquake or other natural disaster or resource shortage could disrupt our operations.

Important documents and records for our products and manufacturing operations are located in our various facilities in San Francisco, California near active earthquake zones. In the event of a natural disaster such as an earthquake, drought, flood or fire or localized extended outages of critical utilities or transportation we do not have a formal business continuity or disaster recovery plan, and therefore could experience a significant business interruption. In addition, California has from time to time experienced shortages of water, natural gas, and electric power. Future shortages and conservation measures could impact our operations and result in increased expenses. In addition, we rely on information technology systems to communicate among our workforce and with third parties. Any disruption to our communications, whether caused by a natural disaster or by man-made problems, such as power disruptions, could adversely affect our business. To the extent that any such disruptions result in delays or cancellations of orders or impede our suppliers’ ability to timely deliver product components, our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected.

We and our third-party providers are subject to cybersecurity risks, and any material failure, weakness, interruption, cyber event, incident, or breach of security could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

We rely on computer systems, hardware, software, technology infrastructure and online sites and networks for both internal and external operations that are critical to our business (collectively, “IT Systems”). We own and manage some of these IT Systems, but also rely on third parties for a range of IT Systems and related products and services. We and certain of our third-party providers collect, maintain and process data about customers, employees, business partners and others, including information about individuals — as well as proprietary information belonging to our business such as trade secrets (collectively, “Confidential Information”).

We and our third-party vendors and suppliers face numerous and evolving cybersecurity risks that threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our IT Systems and Confidential Information, including from diverse threat actors, such as state-sponsored organizations, opportunistic hackers, and hacktivists, as well as through diverse attack vectors including acts of vandalism, malware (including ransomware), social engineering, denial or degradation of service attacks, computer viruses, software bugs or vulnerabilities, supply chain attacks, phishing attacks, ransomware attacks, misplaced or lost data, human errors, malicious insiders or other similar events. Moreover, any integration of artificial intelligence in our or any third-party’s operations, products or services is expected to pose new or unknown cybersecurity risks and challenges.

We and certain of our third-party providers regularly experience actual and attempted cyberattacks and other incidents. Although none of these actual or attempted cyber-attacks has had a material adverse impact on our operations or financial condition to date, we cannot guarantee that any such incidents will not have such an impact in the future. For example, we are at risk for interruptions, outages and breaches of: IT Systems, including in relation to business, financial, accounting, product development, data processing or production processes, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; facility security systems, owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; in-product technology owned by us or our third-party vendors or suppliers; the integrated software in our lidar solutions; or Confidential Information that we process or our third-party vendors or suppliers process on our behalf. Such cyber incidents could materially disrupt IT Systems; result in loss of Confidential Information including intellectual property, trade secrets or other proprietary or competitively sensitive information, certain information of customers, employees, suppliers, drivers or others; jeopardize the security of our facilities; or affect the performance of in-product technology and the integrated software in our lidar solutions.

Cyberattacks are expected to accelerate on a global basis in frequency and magnitude as threat actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated in using techniques and tools—including artificial intelligence—that circumvent security controls, evade detection and remove forensic evidence. As a result, we may be unable to detect, investigate, remediate or recover from future attacks or incidents, or to avoid a material adverse impact to our IT Systems, Confidential Information or business. We also cannot guarantee that our cybersecurity risk management program and processes, including our policies, controls, or procedures will be fully implemented, complied with, or adequate to detect, prevent or mitigate cyber incidents. Further, the implementation, maintenance, segregation and improvement of these programs and processes require significant management time, support and cost. Moreover, there are inherent risks associated with developing, improving, expanding and updating current programs and processes, including the disruption of our data management, procurement, production execution, finance, supply chain and sales and service processes. These risks may affect our ability to manage our data and inventory, procure parts or supplies or produce, sell, deliver and service our solutions, adequately protect our intellectual property or achieve and maintain compliance with, or realize available benefits under, applicable laws, regulations and contracts. We cannot be sure that the programs and processes upon which we rely, including those of our third-party vendors or suppliers, will be effectively implemented, maintained or expanded as planned. If we do not successfully implement, maintain or expand these programs and processes as planned, our operations may be disrupted, our ability to accurately and timely report our financial results could be impaired, and deficiencies may arise in our internal control over financial reporting, which may impact our ability to certify our financial results. Moreover, our Confidential Information, including proprietary information or intellectual property, could be compromised or misappropriated and our reputation may be adversely affected. If these programs and processes do not operate as we expect them to, we may be required to expend significant resources to make corrections or find alternative sources for performing these functions.

A significant cyber incident could impact production capability, harm our reputation, cause us to breach our contracts with other parties or subject us to regulatory actions or litigation (including class actions), and require significant incident response, system restoration, or remediation and future compliance costs, any of which could materially affect our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.

In addition, our insurance coverage for cyber-attacks may not be sufficient to cover all the losses we may experience as a result of a cyber incident, and we cannot guarantee that applicable insurance will be available to us or in the future on economically reasonable terms at all.

We have developed and implemented a cybersecurity program that seeks to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the Company’s information assets, including its critical systems. The Company’s cybersecurity program is based on an ISO 27001 compliant Information Security Management System (ISMS). We use ISO 27001 as a guide to help us identify, assess, and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business. Our cybersecurity program is integrated into our overall risk management program; which is reviewed and evaluated by our Board, and shares reporting channels and governance processes that apply across the risk management program to other legal, compliance, strategic, operational, and financial areas.

Key elements of our cybersecurity program include, but are not limited to, (i) raising security awareness of our employees and product development teams, and (ii) implementing and maintaining security operations that are designed to protect identities, networks, systems, and data and provide for detection, response, and recovery, including a cyber incident response plan.

We engage external parties to enhance our cybersecurity program and to operate a variety of operational functions. We engage consultants, advisors and vendors who are recognized for their cybersecurity expertise or products to supplement, augment and/or test specific elements of our security program. We also engage third-party specialists to conduct security assessments and independent audits of the security of the Company’s systems and networks. The results of these assessments may be used to help us improve our cybersecurity program.

The Company has adopted a third-party management policy to formalize the baseline of security controls that it expects its partners and other third-party companies (including service providers) to meet, in accordance with their criticality to our operations and respective risk profile, when directly interacting with the Company’s data. To mitigate risks that may arise from the Company’s interactions with service providers, suppliers, and vendors, we strive to ensure that our systems/services are integrated with trustworthy vendors.

Although to date we have not experienced a material cybersecurity incident resulting in an interruption of our operations, the scope or impact of any future incident cannot be predicted with complete certainty. For additional information on our cybersecurity risks, see “We and our third-party providers are subject to cybersecurity risks, and any material failure, weakness, interruption, cyber event, incident, or breach of security could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.” in Part 1, Item 1A for more information.

Cybersecurity Governance

Our Board considers cybersecurity risk as part of its overall risk oversight function and has delegated to the Audit Committee oversight of the Company’s cybersecurity program. The Audit Committee receives regular cybersecurity updates and reports from members of the Company’s executive team and the Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance and in turn briefs the full Board on these updates as part of its Committee report. In addition, the full Board receives a full report on the Company’s cybersecurity program at least annually. The Board is also apprised by the executive team and Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance of more significant or serious cybersecurity incidents.

The Company has a Breach Response Team (“BRT”) led by our Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance under the direction of our executive team, and is responsible for assessing and managing our material risks from cybersecurity threats. The Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance has day to day responsibility for the Company’s cybersecurity risk management program and supervises both our internal cybersecurity personnel and our retained external cybersecurity consultants. Our Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance has served in various roles in information security for over 15 years, including serving as Associate Director of Cybersecurity of a public company as well as a PCI Qualified Security Assessor at a cybersecurity consulting firm. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science and has attained various certifications, including an Advanced Computer Certificate from Stanford University. Our executive team takes steps to stay informed about and monitor efforts to prevent, detect, mitigate, and remediate cybersecurity risks and incidents through various means, which may include briefings from the Senior Director of Information Security and Compliance and other internal security personnel; threat intelligence and other information obtained from governmental, public or private sources, including external consultants engaged by us; and alerts and reports produced by security tools deployed in our IT environment. The Company’s executive team also monitors the activities of the BRT and where appropriate participates in and supports the BRT in the evaluation and remediation of actual or perceived cyber incidents in accordance with the Company’s incident response plan.

Our corporate headquarters are located in San Francisco, California where we lease properties as follows: (i) 26,125 square feet of office space pursuant to a lease that is scheduled to expire in August 2027, and (ii) 20,032 square feet of office space in a building adjacent to our corporate headquarters, which term is scheduled to expire in August 2027. Engineering, manufacturing, research and development and administrative functions of the Company are performed in San Francisco.

We also lease a 204,000 square foot facility in San Jose, California, which term will expire in December 2027 and is no longer used for any essential manufacturing, research and development functions.

We also lease other small facilities that we use as offices for our sales and office personnel. These facilities are not material to our business or operations.

We are, from time to time, party to various claims and legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of our business. See Note 9. Commitments and Contingencies included in the notes to our audited financial statements included elsewhere in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for a discussion of our material legal proceedings.

The following discussion and analysis of our results of operations and financial condition should be read together with our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements based upon current plans, expectations and beliefs involving risks and uncertainties. Ouster’s actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth in the section titled “Risk Factors” and in other parts of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Overview

Ouster was founded in 2015 with the invention of our high-performance digital lidar. To continue to grow our business in the coming years, we expanded and plan to continue invest in growing our digital lidar product portfolio, increasing the capabilities of our software solutions, and opportunistically expanding our sales and marketing efforts. We are headquartered in San Francisco, California.

We are a leading global provider of lidar sensors and solutions. We design and manufacture high-resolution digital lidar sensors that offer advanced 3D vision to machinery, vehicles, robots, and fixed infrastructure assets, which allows each to understand and visualize the surrounding world and enable safe operation and autonomy. We believe our sensors are one of the highest-performing, lowest-cost lidar solutions available today across each of our four target markets: automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure. Our digital lidar sensors leverage a simplified architecture based on two semiconductor chips and are backed by a suite of patent-protected technology.

We also provide perception software platforms for smart infrastructure deployments. Our software enables real-time people and object detection, classification, and tracking for actionable, intuitive, and customizable insights while preserving personally identifiable information. Our digital lidar sensors leverage a simplified architecture based on two semiconductor chips and are backed by a suite of patent-protected technology.

Our hardware product offering currently includes four models of sensors in our OS product line: the hemispheric field of view OSDome, the ultra-wide field of view OS0, the mid-range OS1, and the long-range OS2. Within our OS sensor models, we offer numerous customization options, all enabled by embedded software. For each of our models in the OS product line, we offer resolution options of 128 lines vertically (“channels”), 64 channels, or 32 channels, as well as many beam spacing options. In 2022, we launched our REV7 OS series scanning sensors powered by L3 chip. REV7 features the all-new OSDome sensor, as well as upgraded OS0, OS1, and OS2 sensors that deliver double the range, enhanced object detection, increased precision and accuracy, and greater reliability compared to our prior generation sensors. We are currently developing our solid-state digital flash (“DF”) sensors, which is a suite of short, mid, and long-range solid-state digital lidar sensors that provide uniform precision imaging without motion blur across an entire field of view.

We also provide perception software platforms for smart infrastructure deployments. Our software enables real-time people and object detection, classification, and tracking for actionable, intuitive, and customizable insights while preserving personally identifiable information. Ouster Gemini is a perception platform designed for smart infrastructure deployments like security and crowd analytics, and is optimized exclusively for Ouster’s digital lidar sensors. BlueCity is a Gemini-powered solution for traffic operations, planning, and safety. BlueCity provides real-time data analytics and predictions, which can be used to improve traffic and crowd flow efficiency, improve urban planning, advance sustainability, and protect vulnerable road users in a wide range of weather and lighting conditions.

We have invested heavily in patents since our inception, pursuing comprehensive coverage of invention families and use cases, with broad international coverage. We believe that our extensive patent coverage creates material barriers to entry for anyone aiming to compete in the digital lidar space.

We believe the simplicity of our digital lidar design gives us a meaningful advantage in costs related to manufacturing, supply chain, and production yields. Our main manufacturing partners are Benchmark and Fabrinet, which manufacture the majority of our products at their facilities in Thailand. We expect this will allow us to continue to reduce our product costs and rapidly scale production to meet our anticipated product demand. Based on cost quotes for our products in mass production, we anticipate our manufacturing costs per unit will decrease further as production volumes increase.

Merger with Velodyne Lidar, Inc.

On November 4, 2022, we entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Velodyne Merger Agreement”) with Velodyne Lidar, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Velodyne”), Oban Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and one of our direct, wholly owned subsidiaries (“Velodyne Merger Sub I”) and Oban Merger Sub II LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and one of our direct, wholly owned subsidiaries (“Velodyne Merger Sub II”). On February 10, 2023, we completed our merger of equals with Velodyne pursuant to the terms of the Velodyne Merger Agreement with Velodyne, Merger Sub I and Merger Sub II (the “Velodyne Merger”).

The product offerings we acquired through the Velodyne Merger include the VLP-16, VLP-16 Lite, VLP-16 Hi-Res, VLP-32 and VLS-128. These product offerings are in the final stages of their product life cycle and we plan to discontinue manufacturing them in 2025.

Amazon Warrant

Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”), holds a warrant (“Amazon Warrant”) to acquire shares of our common stock. We assumed the Amazon Warrant as part of the Velodyne Merger. As a result of the issuance and sale by us of an additional 6,045,428 shares of common stock in the year ended December 31, 2024 pursuant to the At-Market-Issuance Sales Agreement at prices below the exercise price of the Amazon Warrant, an antidilution adjustment to the terms of the Amazon Warrant occurred, resulting in the increase in the number of shares issuable under the Amazon Warrant by 3,374 shares of common stock and a reduction to the original strike price of the Amazon Warrant to $50.64 per share. As of December 31, 2024, there were 3,267,890 shares of common stock issuable under the Amazon Warrant. The exercise price and the warrant shares issuable upon exercise of the Amazon Warrant are subject to further antidilution adjustments, including in the event we make certain sales of common stock (or securities exercisable or convertible into or exchangeable for shares of our common stock) at a price less than the exercise price of the Amazon Warrant. The Amazon Warrant is subject to vesting; 50% of the unvested Amazon Warrant as of the date of the Velodyne Merger vested as a result of the Velodyne Merger and the remainder will vest over time based on payments by Amazon or its affiliates to us in connection with Amazon’s purchase of goods and services from us.

Factors Affecting Our Performance

Commercialization of Lidar Applications. We believe that our lidar solutions are approaching an inflection point of adoption across our target end market applications, and that we are well-positioned to capitalize on this market adoption. However, as our customers continue research and development projects that rely on lidar technology, it is difficult to estimate the timing of ultimate end market and customer adoption. As a result, we expect that our results of operations, including revenue and gross margins, will improve over time but may fluctuate on a quarterly and annual basis for the foreseeable future. As the market for lidar solutions matures and more customers reach a commercialization phase with solutions that rely on our technology, the fluctuations in our operating results may become less pronounced. In 2025, our strategic business objectives include growing the software-attached business, transforming the product portfolio, and executing towards profitability.

Number of Customers in Production. For certain strategic customers and markets, our products must be integrated into a broader platform, which then must be tested and validated to achieve system-level performance and reliability thresholds that enable commercial production and sales. The time necessary to reach commercial production varies from six months to several years, based on the market and application. For example, the production cycle in the automotive market tends to be substantially longer than in our other target markets. It is critical to our future success in each of our target end markets that our customers reach commercial production and select our products in their commercial production applications, and that we avoid unexpected cancellations of major purchases of our products. Because the timelines to reach production vary significantly and the revenue generated by each customer in connection with commercial production is unpredictable, it is difficult for us to reliably predict our financial performance.

Customers’ Sales Volumes. Our customer base is diversified and we aim to continue to penetrate into diverse end markets to increase our sales volumes. Ultimately, widespread adoption of our customers’ products that incorporate our lidar solutions will depend on many factors, including the size of our customers’ end markets, market penetration of our customers’ products that incorporate our digital lidar solutions, our customers’ ability to sell their products, and the financial stability and reputation of our customers.

Average Selling Prices (“ASPs”), Product Costs and Margins. Our product costs and gross margins depend largely on the volumes of sensors shipped, the mix of existing and new products sold and the number and variety of solutions we provide to our customers. We expect that our selling prices will vary by target end market and application due to market-specific supply and demand dynamics. We expect to continue to experience some downward pressure on prices from signing anticipated large multi-year agreements in the near term with multi-year negotiated pricing. We expect that these customer-specific selling price fluctuations combined with our volume-driven product costs may drive fluctuations in revenue and gross margins on a quarterly basis. However, notwithstanding any short-term price surcharges on our components, we expect that our volume-driven product costs will decrease over time. In addition, we expect that the current uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade relationships may impact our future product costs and margins, particularly to the extent there are significant tariffs or trade restrictions imposed on goods imported from Thailand, Canada, or China that are used in our products. These costs could also impact customer demand as described above under “Customers’ Sales Volumes.”

Competition. Lidar is an emerging technology, and there are many competitors for this growing market which has created downward pressure on our ASPs. Absent the introduction of new technology, we expect this pressure to continue to push our ASPs lower in the coming years. However, we believe that because of the simplicity of our digital lidar technology, we are well-positioned to scale more effectively than our competitors and can leverage this scale to deliver positive gross margins.

Continued Investment and Innovation. We believe that we are a leading lidar provider. Our financial performance is significantly dependent on our ability to maintain this leading position which is further dependent on the investments we make in research and development. We believe it is essential that we continue to identify and respond to rapidly evolving customer requirements, including successfully progressing our digital lidar roadmap and developing technologies that will enhance the operating performance of our products. Our “L4” sensor prototypes are generating rich point clouds and have moved into validation testing. Our “Chronos” chip has been fabricated by our foundry partner and is now undergoing in-house testing. If we fail to continue our innovation, our market position and revenue may be adversely affected, and our investments in that area will not be recovered.

Supply Chain Continuity. Some of the key components in the products we have designed or are currently designing come from limited or single source suppliers. If these third parties experience financial, operational, manufacturing capacity or other difficulties, or experience shortages in required components, or if they are otherwise unable or unwilling to continue to manufacture these components in required volumes or at all, our supply may be disrupted or be on less favorable terms. For example, we may be required to seek alternate manufacturers or suppliers for our products. It would be time-consuming, and could be costly and impracticable, to begin to use and qualify new manufacturers, components or designs, and such changes could cause significant interruptions in supply and could have an adverse effect on our ability to meet our scheduled product deliveries and may subsequently lead to the loss of sales.

Market Trends and Uncertainties. We anticipate increasing demand for our digital lidar solution. We estimate a multi-billion dollar total addressable market (“TAM”) for our solutions in the future. We define our TAM as applications in the automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure end markets where we actively engage and maintain customer relationships. Each of our target markets is potentially a significant global opportunity, and these markets have historically been underserved by limited or inferior technology or not served at all. We believe we are well positioned in our market as a leading provider of high-resolution lidar sensors.

We may not be able to take advantage of demand if we are unable to anticipate regulatory changes and adapt quickly enough to meet such new regulatory standards or requirements applicable to us or to our customers’ products in which our lidar sensors are used. Market acceptance of lidar technology and active safety technology depend upon many factors, including cost, performance, safety performance, regulatory requirements and international taxes or tariffs related to such technologies. These factors may impact the ultimate market acceptance of our lidar technology.

International Expansion. We view international expansion as an important element of our strategy to increase revenue and achieve profitability. We continue to position ourselves in geographic markets that we expect to serve as important sources of future growth. We have an existing presence in three regions: Americas; Asia and Pacific; and Europe, Middle East and Africa. We intend to expand our presence in these regions over time including through distribution partnerships. Expanded global reach will require continued investment and may expose us to additional foreign currency risk, international taxes and tariffs, legal obligations, export/import regulations and additional operational costs. These risks and challenges that may impact our ability to meet our projected sales volumes, revenues, and gross margins. In addition, the current uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade relationships may impact our future international sales, particularly to the extent there are significant tariffs or trade restrictions imposed on goods imported from the United States.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

The majority of our revenue comes from the sale of our lidar sensors and accessories both directly to end users and through distributors both domestically and internationally. We recognize revenue from product sales when the performance obligation of transferring control of the product to the customer has been met, generally when the product is shipped. We also recognize revenue by performing services related to product development, validation, licenses, maintenance under our extended warranty contracts, and shipping. We do not expect these services to be material components of revenue, cost of revenue or gross margin in the near future. Performance obligations related to services are generally recognized over time, based on cost-to-cost input basis or straight-line over time. Amounts billed to customers related to shipping and handling are classified as revenue, and we have elected to recognize the cost of shipping activities that occur after control has transferred to the customer as a fulfillment cost rather than a separate performance obligation. All related costs are accrued and recognized within cost of revenue when the related revenue is recognized.

Most of our customers are innovators and early technology adopters incorporating our products into their solutions. Currently, our product revenue consists of both customers ordering small volumes of our products that are in an evaluation phase and customers that order larger volumes of our products and have more predictable long-term production schedules. However, we believe we are still at the very beginning of the lidar adoption curve, and some customers are still learning their growth and demand rates which can impact the timing of purchase orders quarter to quarter. As we grow our business, we expect to continue to improve our own understanding of our customers’ needs and timelines, and expect the timing of orders will have a less notable impact on our quarterly results.

Cost of Revenue

Cost of revenue consists of the manufacturing cost of our lidar sensors, which primarily consists of sensor components, personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation directly associated with our manufacturing organization, and amounts paid to our third-party contract manufacturer and vendors. Our cost of revenue also includes depreciation of manufacturing equipment, amortization of intangible assets, an allocated portion of overhead, facility and IT costs, warranty expenses, excess and obsolete inventory and shipping costs.

Gross Profit and Gross Margin

Our gross profit equals total revenues less our total cost of revenues, and our gross margin is our gross profit expressed as a percentage of total revenue. Our gross margin is subject to quarterly fluctuations in product mix, price and volume.

Operating Expenses

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development (“R&D”) activities are primarily conducted at our San Francisco headquarters and our additional R&D facilities in Scotland and Canada and consist of the following activities:

• Design, prototyping, and testing of proprietary electrical, optical, and mechanical subsystems for our digital lidar products;
• Robust testing for safety certifications;
• Development of new products and enhancements to existing products in response to customer requirements including firmware and software development of lidar integration products;
• Custom SoC design for Ouster’s digital lidar products; and
• Development of custom manufacturing equipment.

R&D expenses consist of personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation, for all personnel directly involved in R&D activities, third-party engineering and contractor costs, prototype expenses, amortization of intangible assets, and an allocated portion of overhead, facility and information technology (“IT”) costs that support R&D activities.

R&D costs are expensed as they are incurred. Our investment in R&D will continue to grow as we invest in new lidar technology and related software. Our absolute amount of R&D expenses is expected to grow over time; however, we expect R&D as a percentage of revenue to decrease as our business grows.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Our business development, customer support and marketing teams are located in offices worldwide. Selling and marketing expenses consist of personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation, for all personnel directly involved in business development, customer support, and marketing activities, and marketing expenses including trade shows, advertising, and demonstration equipment. Sales and marketing expenses also include amortization expense of intangible assets related to customer relationships associated with the acquisitions and an allocated portion of facility and IT costs that support sales and marketing activities. We expect sales and marketing expenses as a percentage of revenue to decrease over time as our business grows.

General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses consist of personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation, of our executives and members of the board of directors, finance, human resources, an allocated portion of facility and IT costs that support general and administrative activities, as well as amortization of intangible assets, fees related to legal fees, patent prosecution, accounting, finance and professional services, as well as insurance and bank fees. We have experienced and may in the near-term experience additional increases in general and administrative expenses related to legal, accounting, finance and professional services costs associated with litigation activities, hiring more personnel and consultants to support our international activities and compliance with the applicable provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other SEC rules and regulations as a result of being a public company. Our absolute amount of general and administrative expenses will grow over time; however, we expect general and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue to decrease as our business grows.

Goodwill Impairment Charges

In the year ended December 31, 2023, we recorded goodwill impairment charges of approximately $166.7 million. These charges were primarily driven by the decrease in our market capitalization during the period. Our goodwill impairment analysis includes a comparison of the aggregate estimated fair value of our reporting unit to our total market capitalization. There was no addition to goodwill as of December 31, 2024, and as such, our remaining goodwill balance was nil.

Interest Income, Interest Expense, and Other Income (Expense), Net

Interest income consists primarily of income earned on our cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments. These amounts will vary based on our respective balances and market rates. Interest expense consists primarily of interest on our debt and the amortization of debt issuance costs and discounts. Other income (expense), net consists primarily of realized and unrealized gains and losses on foreign currency transactions and balances, realized gains and losses related to sales of our available-for-sale investments and the change in fair value of the private placement warrant liability.

Income Taxes

Our income tax provision consists of federal, state and foreign current and deferred income taxes. Our income tax provision for interim periods is determined using an estimate of our annual effective tax rate, adjusted for discrete items arising in the quarter. Our effective tax rate differs from the U.S. statutory tax rate primarily due to valuation allowances on deferred tax assets as it is more likely than not that some, or all, of our deferred tax assets will not be realized. We continue to maintain a full valuation allowance against our U.S. Federal and state deferred tax assets, excluding specific balances due to the Velodyne Merger. The income tax provision for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively, was not material to the Company’s consolidated financial statements.

Results of Operations:

The following table summarizes key components of our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023:

(dollars in thousands)

The following table sets forth the components of our consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss data as a percentage of revenue for the periods presented:

49

(1) Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows:

(dollars in thousands)

Comparison of the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023

Revenue

(dollars in thousands)

Revenue

Revenue increased by $27.8 million, or 33%, to $111.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 from $83.3 million for the prior year. The increase in revenue was primarily driven by increased sales of the REV7 sensors as customers increased their purchase levels compared to the prior year period.

Geographic Locations

Revenue increased across the geographic regions of the Americas, Asia and Pacific, and Europe, Middle East and Africa as compared to the comparable period in the prior year. The revenue increases in those geographic regions were primarily attributable to higher sales of the REV7 sensor.

Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin

(dollars in thousands)

Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue decreased by $4.3 million, or 6%, to $70.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 from $75.0 million for the prior year. The decrease in cost of revenue was primarily attributable to lower excess and obsolete inventory charges and compensation-related expenses, partially offset by increased shipments over the period.

Gross margin rose to 36% for the year ended December 31, 2024 from 10% in the prior year primarily as a result of the factors described above related to the increased sales of REV7 sensor.

Operating Expenses

(dollars in thousands)

Research and Development

Research and development expenses decreased by $33.1 million, or 36%, to $58.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 from $91.2 million in the prior year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the reduction in compensation expenses and other costs from the restructuring and cost reduction initiatives after the closing of the Velodyne Merger.

Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing expenses decreased by $13.8 million, or 33%, to $27.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 from $41.6 million in the prior year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the reduction in compensation expenses and other costs from the restructuring and cost reduction initiatives after the closing of the Velodyne Merger.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses decreased by $23.3 million, or 28%, to $58.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 from $82.0 million in the prior year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the reduction in compensation expenses and other costs from the restructuring and cost reduction initiatives after the closing of the Velodyne Merger.

Goodwill Impairment Charges

There was no addition to goodwill for the year ended December 31, 2024, and as such, our remaining goodwill balance was nil. Goodwill impairment charges were $166.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, primarily driven by the decrease in our market capitalization during the period.

Interest Income, Interest Expense and Other Income (Expense), Net

(dollars in thousands)

The year-over-year decrease in interest income was primarily attributable to lower average cash and cash equivalent balances.

The year-over-year decrease in interest expense was due to entering into the UBS Agreement in October 2023, which had a lower interest rate than our prior debt arrangement and a reduction in the outstanding debt balance which was paid off in full on August 12, 2024.

Other income (expense), net was not material for the years ended December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023.

Income Taxes

(dollars in thousands)

Our effective tax rate was (0.56)% for the year ended December 31, 2024 compared to our effective tax rate of (0.14)% for the prior year. Our tax expense changed during the year ended December 31, 2024, compared to the prior year, primarily due to income tax expense from profitable foreign jurisdictions.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our principal sources of liquidity are our cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments, cash generated from sales of our products, and sales of common stock under our at-the market equity offering program.

Our primary requirements for liquidity and capital are to finance working capital, inventory management, capital expenditures, and general corporate purposes. We expect these needs to continue as we develop and grow our business.

As of December 31, 2024 we had an accumulated deficit of $913.1 million and cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of approximately $174.6 million. Management believes that our existing sources of liquidity will be adequate to fund our operations for at least twelve months from the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. However, we may need to raise additional capital in the future to support our operations.

We manage our cash and cash equivalents with financial institutions that we believe have high credit quality and, at times, such amounts exceed federally insured limits. The failure of any bank with which we maintain a commercial relationship could cause us to lose our deposits in excess of the federally insured or protected amounts. We have experienced recurring losses from operations, and negative cash flows from operations, and we expect to continue operating at a loss and to have negative cash flows from operations for the foreseeable future. Because we are in the growth stage of our business and operate in an emerging field of technology, we expect to continue to invest in research and development and opportunistically expand our sales and marketing teams worldwide. We may require additional capital to respond to technological advancements, competitive dynamics or technologies, customer demands, business opportunities, challenges, acquisitions, or unforeseen circumstances and in either the short-term or long-term may determine to engage in equity or debt financings. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited. In particular, current macroeconomic conditions, including elevated inflation rates and high interest rates, have resulted in, and may continue to result in, significant disruption of global financial markets, reducing our ability to access capital. If we are unable to raise additional funds when or on the terms desired, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

ATM Agreement

On April 29, 2022, we entered into an open market sale agreement with B. Riley Securities, Inc., Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. (the “ATM Agreement”), which expires three years from the May 2, 2022 Form S-3 filing date, pursuant to which we may offer and sell shares of our common stock with an aggregate offering price of up to $150.0 million under an “at the market” offering program. Subject to the terms and conditions of the ATM Agreement, we may sell the shares in amounts and at times to be determined by us but we are under no obligation to sell any of the shares. Actual sales, if any, will depend on a variety of factors to be determined by us from time to time, including, among other things, market conditions, the trading price of our common stock, capital needs and determinations by us of the appropriate sources of funding. During the year ended December 31, 2024, we sold 6,045,428 shares of common stock for net proceeds of $57.8 million under the ATM Agreement, and during the year ended December 31, 2023, we sold 2,878,875 shares of common stock for net proceeds of $14.6 million.

The remaining availability under the ATM Agreement as of December 31, 2024 is approximately $58.6 million. We currently intend to use the net proceeds from the sale of shares pursuant to the ATM Agreement for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Prior Debt Arrangements

On October 25, 2023, we entered into the Credit Line Account Application and Agreement for Organizations and Businesses (the “Credit Agreement”) and the Addendum to Credit Line Account Application and Agreement (the “Addendum”; and the Credit Agreement as amended, modified, and/or supplemented by the Addendum, the “UBS Agreement”) by and among the Company, UBS Bank USA (the “Bank”), and UBS Financial Services Inc. The UBS Agreement provided us with a revolving credit line of up to $45.0 million, subject to certain terms and conditions. We initially borrowed $44.0 million, and all of the proceeds were used to refinance and terminate our prior term loan facility.

On August 12, 2024, we repaid the $44.0 million principal amount outstanding under the UBS Agreement, along with accrued interest, and terminated all commitments and obligations thereunder. We funded the repayment of the outstanding revolving loans under the UBS Agreement with cash on hand. For additional information regarding the terms of the UBS Agreement, see Note 6. Debt to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Material Cash Requirements

We are a party to many contractual obligations involving commitments to make payments to third parties. These obligations impact our short-term and long-term liquidity and capital resource needs. Certain contractual obligations are reflected on the consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2024, while others are considered future commitments. Our contractual obligations primarily consist of non-cancelable purchase commitments with various parties to purchase goods or services, primarily inventory, entered into in the normal course of business and operating leases. For information regarding our other contractual obligations, refer to Note 8. Leases and Note 9. Commitments and Contingencies to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Cash Flow Summary

(dollars in thousands)

Operating Activities

During the year ended December 31, 2024, operating activities used $33.7 million in cash. The primary factors affecting our operating cash flows during this period were our net loss of $97.0 million, offset by our non-cash charges of $51.9 million primarily consisting of depreciation and amortization of $9.8 million, stock-based compensation of $40.5 million, amortization of right-of-use asset of $4.9 million and inventory write-down of $2.1 million. The changes in our operating assets and liabilities of $11.5 million was primarily due to a decrease in accounts receivable of $1.7 million, decrease in inventory of $4.7 million, an increase in prepaid expenses and other assets of $21.3 million, an increase in accounts payable of $2.5 million, an increase in contract liabilities of $19.0 million, a decrease in operating lease liability of $6.3 million, and a decrease in accrued and other liabilities of $28.1 million.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, operating activities used $137.9 million in cash. The primary factors affecting our operating cash flows during this period were our net loss of $374.1 million, impacted by our non-cash charges of $257.7 million primarily consisting of inventory write-down of $10.0 million, interest expense and loss on extinguishment of debt of $4.0 million, goodwill impairment charges of $166.7 million, depreciation and amortization of $17.1 million, stock-based compensation of $57.7 million, loss on write-off of construction in-progress and right-of-use asset impairment of $1.7 million, and amortization of right-of-use asset of $4.5 million. The cash used in changes in our operating assets and liabilities of $21.5 million was primarily due to an increase in inventories of $4.0 million, a decrease in accounts payable of $8.5 million, an increase in accrued and other liabilities of $8.1 million.

Investing Activities

During the year ended December 31, 2024, cash provided by investing activities was $14.7 million, consisting primarily of $162.3 million proceeds from sales of short-term investments and purchases of short-term investments of $144.6 million.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, cash used in investing activities was $50.6 million, which was attributed primarily to the Velodyne Merger and proceeds and purchases of short-term investments.

Financing Activities

During the year ended December 31, 2024, cash provided by financing activities was $15.4 million, consisting primarily of $57.8 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock under the ATM Agreement, partially offset by the repayment of indebtedness of $44.0 million under the UBS Agreement.

During the year ended December 31, 2023, cash provided by financing activities was $15.7 million, consisting primarily of $14.6 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock under the ATM Agreement and proceeds from employee stock purchase program of $1.2 million.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates, assumptions and judgments that can significantly impact the amounts we report as assets, liabilities, revenue, costs and expenses and the related disclosures. We base our estimates on historical experience and other assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ significantly from these estimates under different assumptions and conditions.

Business Combinations

Business combinations are accounted for under the acquisition method. We recognize the assets acquired and liabilities assumed in business combinations on the basis of their fair values at the date of acquisition. We assess the fair value of assets acquired, including intangible assets, and liabilities assumed using a variety of methods. Each asset acquired and liability assumed is measured at fair value from the perspective of a market participant. The method used to estimate the fair values of intangible assets incorporates significant estimates and assumptions regarding the estimates a market participant would make in order to evaluate an asset, including a market participant’s use of the asset, future cash inflows and outflows, probabilities of success, asset lives, and the appropriate discount rates. Any excess purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and intangible assets acquired is allocated to goodwill. Transaction costs and restructuring costs associated with a business combination are expensed as incurred.

During the measurement period, which extends no later than one year from the acquisition date, we may record certain adjustments to the carrying value of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed with the corresponding offset to goodwill. After the measurement period, all adjustments are recorded in the consolidated statements of operations within other income (expense), net.

Inventory Valuation

Inventories are stated at the lower of cost or estimated net realizable value. Costs are computed under the standard cost method, which approximates actual costs determined on a first in, first out basis. We record write-downs of inventories which are obsolete or in excess of anticipated demand. Significant judgment is used in establishing our forecasts of future demand and obsolete material exposures. We consider marketability and product life cycle stage, product development plans, demand forecasts, and assumptions about future demand and market conditions in establishing our estimates. If the actual component usage and product demand are significantly lower than forecast, which may be caused by factors within and outside of our control, or if there were a higher incidence of inventory obsolescence because of rapidly changing technology and our customer requirements, we may be required to increase our inventory write-downs. A change in our estimates could have a significant impact on the value of our inventory and our results of operations.

We believe that the accounting policy discussed below is critical to understanding our historical and future performance as these policies involve a greater degree of judgment and complexity.

Revenue Recognition

Revenue is recognized when a customer obtains control of promised products or services. The amount of revenue recognized reflects the consideration that the Company expects to be entitled to receive in exchange for these products or services. Significant judgment is applied when the Company determines the amount and timing of revenue from the intellectual property (“IP”) royalties when Company contracts with customers to license rights to its IP.

Refer to Note 2 - Summary of Significant Accounting Policies to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” for additional information regarding our revenue recognition policies.

We are exposed to market risks in the ordinary course of our business. Market risk represents the risk of loss that may impact our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. Our market risk exposure is primarily the result of fluctuations in interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates and to a lesser extent, inflation risk. The following analysis provides quantitative and qualitative information regarding these risks.

Inflation Risk

General inflation in the U.S., Europe and other geographies has risen significantly in recent years. To date, we do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations, other than its impact on the general economy. However, we are monitoring the current inflationary environment, particularly as it may be impacted by proposed and/or newly implemented tariffs. If our costs were to become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases, and our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Interest Rate Risk

As of December 31, 2024, we had cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments of approximately $174.6 million, of which $24.7 million consisted of institutional money market funds, $56.9 million consisted of commercial paper, and $69.6 million consisted of corporate debt and U.S. government agency securities, all of which carries a degree of interest rate risk. The primary goals of our investment policy are liquidity and capital preservation. We do not enter into investments for trading or speculative purposes. These investments are subject to interest rate risk, as sharp increases in market interest rates could have an adverse impact on their fair value. Although the fair values of these instruments can fluctuate, we believe that the short-term, highly liquid nature of these investments, and our ability to hold these instruments to maturity, reduces our risk for potential material losses. A hypothetical 100 basis point change in interest rates would not have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations due to the short-term nature of our investment portfolio.

On August 12, 2024, we repaid in full, with cash on hand, all outstanding indebtedness and terminated all commitments and obligations under the UBS Agreement. As of December 31, 2024, we had no debt outstanding and therefore are not exposed to interest rate risk with respect to debt.

Foreign Currency Exchange Risk

Our results of operations and cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Substantially all of our revenue is generated in U.S. dollars. Our expenses are generally denominated in the currencies of the jurisdictions in which we conduct our operations, which are primarily in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Asia and Europe. Our results of operations and cash flows are, therefore, subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates and may be adversely affected in the future due to changes in foreign exchange rates. The effect of a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would not have a material impact on our historical consolidated financial statements. To date, we have not engaged in any hedging strategies. As our international operations grow, we will continue to reassess our approach to manage our risk relating to fluctuations in currency rates. No strategy can completely insulate us from risks associated with such fluctuations and our currency exchange rate risk management activities could expose us to substantial losses if such rates move materially differently from our expectations.

Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls and Procedures

Disclosure controls and procedures include controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in the reports filed or submitted under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, (“Exchange Act”) is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms and that such information is accumulated and communicated to management of the Company, including its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. In addition, the design of disclosure controls and procedures must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and that management is required to apply judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as that term is defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act) as of December 31, 2024. Based on that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2024 due to the material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting described below.

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act). Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer, conducted an assessment as of December 31, 2024 of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria set forth in Internal Control–Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). Based on this assessment, our management concluded that, as of December 31, 2024, our internal control over financial reporting was not effective due to the material weaknesses described below.

A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

We did not design and maintain an effective control environment commensurate with our financial reporting requirements. Specifically, we did not maintain a sufficient complement of personnel with an appropriate degree of internal controls and accounting knowledge, experience, and training commensurate with our accounting and reporting requirements. This material weakness contributed to the following additional material weakness.

• We did not design and maintain effective controls over the period-end financial reporting process to ensure, for other than journal entries, that segregation of duties (SOD) conflicts were identified, reviewed and mitigated by appropriately designed mitigating controls as needed to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures.

The material weakness related to the control environment resulted in adjustments to several account balances and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018, adjustments to the equity and warrant liabilities accounts and related disclosures in the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2021, and an immaterial adjustment which was recorded prior to the issuance of the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements as of June 30, 2024. The material weakness related to segregation of duties did not result in a material misstatement to the consolidated financial statements. Additionally, each of these material weaknesses could result in a misstatement of account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to the annual or interim consolidated financial statements that would not be prevented or detected.

Remediation Measures of Unremediated Material Weaknesses

As it relates to the above material weaknesses that continued to exist as of December 31, 2024, our management is committed and continues to make progress to improve our internal control over financial reporting. We continued implementation of a plan to remediate the control deficiencies that led to the above material weaknesses. These remediation measures are ongoing and include the following:

• Improve internal controls to ensure that segregation of duties (SOD) conflicts are timely identified, reviewed and mitigated by appropriately designed mitigating controls and procedures. This includes periodic monitoring of changes in roles and responsibilities that could impact SOD conflicts within the period-end financial reporting process.
• Continuing to recruit personnel with appropriate internal controls, accounting knowledge and experience commensurate with our accounting and reporting requirements, in addition to engaging and utilizing third party consultants and specialists. Our management also continued to reallocate and align roles and responsibilities within the accounting team to optimize and leverage the skills and experience of various personnel.
• Continuing to provide internal control training for personnel responsible for implementing internal controls for the Company.

These investments in resources have improved the stability of our accounting organization. While significant progress has been made in response to the material weaknesses, time is needed to demonstrate sustainability as it relates to our internal control over financial reporting and improvements made to our complement of resources, including demonstrating sustained operating effectiveness of our internal controls related to SOD. We are committed to continuous improvement and will continue to diligently review our internal control over financial reporting.

Remediation of Previously Reported Material Weaknesses

As previously disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, our management concluded that we did not design and maintain effective controls over the period-end financial reporting process to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures, including adequate controls related to journal entries, and verifying transactions are properly classified in the financial statements. Our management completed the following actions and measures designed to remediate the control deficiencies that led to the above material weaknesses:

• Throughout 2024, we enhanced the design and/or operation over internal controls for period end financial reporting to ensure transactions are properly classified in our financial statements, and controls related to preparation and review of journal entries. Building on the controls designed and implemented in the previous financial years, we continued to strengthen and improve these controls during 2024.

Our management completed its documentation, testing and evaluation of the enhanced control activities and determined that, as of December 31, 2024, these control activities have been appropriately designed and implemented, and have operated effectively for a sufficient period of time to conclude that these previously identified material weaknesses related to controls over the period-end financial reporting process to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures, including adequate controls related to journal entries, and verifying transactions are properly classified in the financial statements, have been remediated.

Attestation Report of Registered Public Accounting Firm

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024 was not required to be audited by our independent registered public accounting firm under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 due to Ouster being deemed a Smaller Reporting Company (SRC) within the definition of Rule 12b-2 as the company’s public float was below the specified thresholds as of June 30, 2024. Accordingly, this Annual Report on Form 10-K does not include an attestation report of our independent registered public accounting firm.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) during the quarter ended December 31, 2024 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.