Ouster adds USD 60 million to funding base, hits business milestones

The additional USD 60 million in equity and debt funding includes investments from Runway Growth Capital and Silicon Valley Bank, as well as additional funding from Series A participants Cox Enterprises, Constellation Tech Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Carthona, and others. Ouster’s USD 27 million in Series A capital was announced in December of 2017, according to a press statement. Ouster's customer base represents a technology reach across multiple industries where high performance lidar is needed, including autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, agriculture, mapping, defense, and drones. With its all-semiconductor approach to lidar, the company's 3D sensors are small, lightweight, and durable. The company also announced the opening of a new manufacturing facility that is currently producing hundreds of sensors per month, with the capability of thousands per month. Ouster has also appointed Susan Heystee to its board of directors. The company said in a statement that “Heystee will contribute to corporate governance, draw from her background in scaling companies from tens to thousands of employees, guide sales and marketing strategy, and contribute her extensive background in the automotive, technology, and fleet sectors.” Heystee’s most recent post was as senior VP of Verizon's Global Automotive business. Since Ouster’s launch in 2017, the company has frown from a 4-person team inhabiting a small warehouse to more than 100 full-time employees across engineering, operations, business development, and marketing. In January, Ouster was awarded the CES Innovation Award in the Vehicle Intelligence and Self-Driving Technology category for its multi-beam flash lidar sensor, the OS-1-128.