A star company with a maximum market value of 54.6 billion has gone bankrupt.

"Anyone who relies on lidar is doomed to fail," Elon Musk once asserted.

On December 15th, Luminar, regarded as the last remaining hope for American lidar, announced on its official website the news of its bankruptcy and reorganization. According to the court documents submitted by Luminar, its asset valuation is between $100 million and $500 million, while the total debt and liabilities amount to as much as $500 million to $1 billion.

Affected by the bankruptcy news, Luminar's stock price plummeted by 60.82% that day, dropping to $0.35 per share, and its market value was only $27.4453 million.

From a startup project of a genius teenager to a tech upstart with a market value of tens of billions of dollars, and now to a dramatic closure, Luminar's story has become a microcosm of the development history of American lidar. Its downfall also means that the United States has been eliminated from the lidar field. Correspondingly, Chinese manufacturers have occupied the vast majority of the market share.

Defeat

When SPAC was booming in 2020, Luminar entered the capital market in this way. The saying "reaching the peak upon listing" couldn't be more appropriate for Luminar. Here, the "peak" refers not only to the stock price but also to Luminar's business.

Although many automakers signed orders with Luminar, they have always faced challenges in actual delivery. This has kept Luminar deeply trapped in the whirlpool of losses. Supplying products at prices lower than the cost for a long time has led to the situation of "the more it sells, the more it loses." The financial report for the third quarter of 2025 showed that its operating profit margin was as low as -283.7%.

In the end, Luminar's situation became one where it could only rely on Volvo to survive.

In November this year, Volvo, Luminar's most important and core partner, announced the termination of the agreement with Luminar and decided that starting from April 2026, models such as the EX90 would no longer have Luminar's lidar as a standard configuration, only an optional one. At the same time, the technical cooperation for the next - generation models was postponed to 2029.

This directly cut off Luminar's most important expected source of income and was also regarded as the latest escalation of the increasingly fierce conflict between the two sides. It should be noted that according to the 2023 Global Lidar Market Report, Luminar's market share that year was about 8 - 10%, ranking third globally. After Volvo terminated the cooperation, Luminar's share would drop to less than 1%.

In response, Volvo said in a statement sent to TechCrunch: "Volvo made this decision to limit the company's exposure to supply - chain risks, which was due to Luminar's failure to fulfill its contractual obligations to Volvo Cars."

After losing the core order, Luminar's financial situation deteriorated sharply. According to the data disclosed at the beginning of December 2025, its cash on hand could only support operations until the first quarter of 2026.

To make matters worse, Luminar also had no ability to find new customers to make up for this deficit.

On the one hand, the "pure vision" solution represented by Tesla advocates not using lidar. As its technology matures, some automakers have begun to waver in the necessity of lidar and started to explore or switch to lower - cost solutions, which further squeezed Luminar's market space.

On the other hand, just looking at the passenger - car lidar market, Chinese manufacturers have already occupied as much as 93% of the market share. In contrast, the market shares of overseas lidar manufacturers such as Valeo, Luminar, and Innoviz have continued to shrink.

Amid external troubles, internal concerns cannot be ignored either. Since 2024, in order to cut costs, Luminar has launched multiple rounds of layoffs. It is rumored that the proportion was as high as about 30%. This year, the internal situation has taken a turn for the worse:

In May, founder and CEO Russell was removed from his post due to an ethics investigation;

In November, Volvo, the largest customer, announced the termination of the cooperation; the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) left; the company ran out of cash, and the debt reached as high as $429 million;

In December: It formally filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection application with the court and planned to sell its assets.

Interestingly, earlier this year, Russell reappeared and tried to regain control of the company he had lost. He acquired 100% of Luminar's Class A shares and incorporated them under his newly established company, Russell AI Labs.

Regarding its current situation, Luminar has also launched a series of self - rescue actions, such as selling its Luminar Semiconductor subsidiary for $110 million in cash and planning to sell its lidar business.

However, Paul Ritchie, Luminar's current Chief Executive Officer, said: "Over the past six months, we have taken practical and effective measures to strengthen operational discipline, streamline the cost structure, and clarify the strategic direction. After a comprehensive evaluation of various options, the board of directors determined that the court - supervised bankruptcy process was the best way forward."

Luminar also emphasized that it would continue to operate during the bankruptcy process and maintain the delivery of its lidar hardware and software to customers.

Luminar's experience once again proves that in the West, if you don't oppose Musk politically, your fate doesn't seem to be too bad. Even a genius teenager, even with top - tier customers and first - line capital, all these halos failed to solve the most basic business puzzle: how to make money continuously.

A 17 - year - old Genius Teenager Drops Out of School to Start a Business

Among entrepreneurs in emerging industries, there has never been a shortage of genius teenagers. However, in the lidar field, the stories of genius teenagers dropping out of prestigious universities have become a classic narrative for Silicon Valley lidar companies. Undoubtedly, Luminar's founder, Austin Russell, also fits this template.

In 1995, Russell was born in Newport Beach, California. He showed extraordinary talent from a young age. In primary school, he had already memorized the periodic table of elements and began to study advanced physics in depth. At the age of 13, he applied for his first personal patent - a patent for a groundwater recycling system.

It is reported that as early as in high school, Russell studied at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine, under the guidance of optical expert Jason Eichenholz (who later became Luminar's co - founder and CTO). The turning point occurred during Russell's university years.

Shortly after being admitted to Stanford University, Russell participated in a scholarship program founded by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and a legendary venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. This program is well - known today and has nurtured many star projects. During this process, 17 - year - old Russell saw a huge opportunity in the lidar field, so he joined hands with his teacher to co - found Luminar, but their startup capital was only $100,000.

After starting the business, Russell didn't quickly launch products into the market. Instead, he chose to conduct low - key research and development for nearly five years. At the same time, he discovered opportunities that others had overlooked. His innovation was actually a low - cost improved version of lidar, a technology that first emerged in 1962.

Before Luminar's products were launched, on - vehicle lidars were expensive and bulky. Russell's solution was to miniaturize, improve, and achieve economies of scale. Compared with traditional camera - or radar - based systems, the Luminar system has higher accuracy, especially in low - light conditions, thus improving vehicle safety and navigation performance.

More importantly, the Luminar system reduced the price of lidar from $75,000 to only $500 per unit - a price reduction of 150 times. As a result, once Luminar's products were launched, they quickly took the leading position in the market and successively won orders from many global giant OEMs and Tier 1 customers. NVIDIA, Mobileye, Qualcomm, Toyota, Volvo, Mercedes - Benz, Audi, SAIC, etc., all became Luminar's partners.

In the capital market, Luminar also created a wave of enthusiasm. In 2017, upon its debut, Luminar raised $36 million in funds from institutions such as Canvas Ventures, GVA Capital, and 1517 Fund. This financing directly made it enter the club of companies with a valuation of $1 billion. In the next two years, it received a cumulative financing of more than $250 million from companies such as Volvo, NVIDIA, and Corning.

In 2020, Luminar went public on the NASDAQ through SPAC, raising a total of $600 million. On the first day of listing, Luminar's market value soared to $7.8 billion (about 54.6 billion RMB). According to the information filed by Luminar with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Russell held nearly one - third of the company's equity. After the first - day trading ended, his net worth soared to $2.4 billion.

Yes, Russell became one of the youngest self - made billionaires that year. In less than five years, this wealth has almost returned to zero. Russell's next hope lies in Russell AI Labs, which was founded just two months ago. This time, he didn't oppose Musk, and more importantly, he didn't confront the Chinese supply chain head - on.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Dongsi Shitiao Capital" (ID: DsstCapital), author: Zhang Xue, published by 36Kr with authorization.