Luminar has reached a deal to sell its lidar business to a company called Quantum Computing Inc. for just 22 million dollars. This sale is pending unless a better offer is received by a deadline of 5:00 p.m. Central Time on Monday. The lidar-maker, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, had already announced plans to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to the same buyer for 110 million dollars. Both deals require approval from the bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas before they can be finalized.
Luminar founder and former CEO Austin Russell has signaled interest in submitting a bid for the lidar assets. He previously tried to buy the entire company in October, before it filed for bankruptcy. The company is currently attempting to serve him with a subpoena for information stored on his cell phone. This is part of an evaluation by Luminar on whether to make any legal claims against him related to a board-run ethics inquiry that led to his resignation last May. It is not known how many other bids Luminar might receive by Monday’s deadline.
Quantum Computing Inc. has been designated as a “stalking horse bidder.” This role helps establish a baseline value for the assets and helps prevent low-ball offers. Luminar has stated it wants to move through the bankruptcy case quickly. Its largest creditors, which are mostly financial institutions that loaned the company money in recent years, are helping fund the proceedings.
Even if Luminar receives a higher offer, the stalking horse bid represents a monumental fall from the company’s peak market capitalization in 2021, when it was worth around 11 billion dollars. That valuation was propped up by the promise that Luminar’s lidar sensors would be widely adopted by major automakers. Volvo, for example, at one point planned to buy more than 1 million units before ultimately walking away from the deal in 2025. Other deals with Mercedes-Benz and Polestar fell apart as well.
Quantum Computing Inc. has an unusual history. It was founded in 2001 as a company called Ticketcart that sold ink-jet cartridges. It bought a beverage company in 2007, went through its own restructuring process ten years later, and then pivoted to making optic technology for the budding world of quantum computing. The company raised more than 700 million dollars by selling shares in 2025, though its revenue for the first nine months of last year was just 384,000 dollars.