AEye Reports Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results

Announces Positive Product and Customer Momentum

AEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: LIDR), a global leader in adaptive, high-performance LiDAR solutions, today announced its third quarter 2021 financial results.

“AEye is experiencing positive customer and partnership momentum,” commented Blair LaCorte, CEO of AEye. “We believe this business traction is directly attributable to our decision to take the time to build an adaptive LiDAR platform, in contrast to how our peers approached the market. Our platform is unique as it can be licensed to ADAS customers, such as Continental, as well as sold directly into a variety of industrial and mobility markets in conjunction with our system integrator partners. AEye’s goal remains to leverage this unique adaptive architecture to deliver reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance products to accelerate the adoption of LiDAR.”

AEye management will hold a conference call today, November 11, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. Pacific time (6:00 p.m. Eastern time) to discuss these results. AEye’s CEO, Blair LaCorte, and CFO, Bob Brown, will host the call, followed by a question-and-answer session.

The webcast and accompanying slides will be accessible via the company’s website at https://investors.aeye.ai/.

Strategic Milestones for 2021

• Financial
  • AEye completed its public debut by listing on Nasdaq (LIDR), raising more than $200 million, net of fees, to fund product development, increase scale, and support AEye’s growing customer base.

• Product
  • AEye established new LiDAR industry performance standards for range, rate, and resolution in performance specification tests monitored, validated, and published by VSI Labs, one of the nation’s leading independent evaluators and advisors on active safety and automated vehicle technologies.
  • AEye validated superior weather performance as documented in the journal, Atmosphere.

• Manufacturing
  • ADAS: AEye transitioned initial production of automotive B-samples of AEye-based long-range LiDAR sensors to a Continental manufacturing line. The Continental HRL131 is on-track for large-scale series production in 2024. The HRL 131 will be manufactured, sold, and supported, under Continental’s name to its installed base of 25 ADAS customers/OEMs.
  • Industrial: AEye is on schedule to transition manufacturing of AEye’s 4Sight™ M sensor for industrial and mobility applications from AEye’s Advanced Development Center in Dublin, CA to Sanmina, AEye’s lead contract manufacturing partner, in the fourth quarter of 2021.

• Customers and Partners
  • Continental announced the integration of AEye’s LiDAR technology into their full-stack (cameras, radar, lidar, and ECU) automotive-grade system for Level 2+ automated and autonomous driving applications – allowing Continental to sell a standalone high-performance long-range LiDAR sensor or as part of a complete ADAS system.
  • AEye announced a partnership with TuSimple to deploy AEye’s long-range, high-performance LiDAR for autonomous trucking applications.
  • AEye announced integration of its adaptive LiDAR with the Nvidia DRIVE Platform for autonomous vehicles.
  • AEye launched its adaptive LiDAR solutions for Intelligent Transportation Systems at the ITS World Congress in Hamburg in October:
    • Partnered with Seoul Robotics, a global leader in perception software, to integrate AEye’s adaptive LiDAR with Seoul Robotics’ SENSR perception software to deliver a complete solution for long-range object detection, classification, and perception.
    • Collaborated with Intetra, a leading provider of end-to-end ITS solutions, to demonstrate how AEye’s software-definable LiDAR enables improved detection accuracy for automated tolling in all lighting, weather, and traffic conditions.
    • AEye is also working with ITS industry leaders such as Mitsubishi and Econolite.
  • AEye, as previously announced, is working with leaders in other industrial markets such as Komatsu (Construction) and Hitachi (Rail).

• Governance
  • A new board of directors was elected, bringing to AEye extensive public governance, legal, and financial management experience as well as deep domain expertise in the automotive, trucking, aerospace, and defense markets.

• Scaling the Company
  • AEye opened offices in Japan and Korea and expanded our presence in Germany to support international growth.
  • AEye increased key employee headcount primarily in engineering, operations, and sales and marketing to support product roll-out.

• Innovation
  • AEye filed its 100th patent for groundbreaking concepts that meaningfully strengthen AEye’s IP protection and competitive position.

Q3 2021 Financials

AEye reported revenue of $0.1 million, and a GAAP net loss of $(17.4) million, or $(0.15) per share based on 114.9 million weighted average shares outstanding. Adjusted EBITDA was $(12.5) million for the quarter.

The company closed the quarter with $182.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, and marketable securities and is debt-free.

Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure. Refer to “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” for a discussion of Adjusted EBITDA and the financial tables below for reconciliations of Adjusted EBITDA to GAAP net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure.

Conference Call and Webcast Details

AEye management will hold a conference call today, November 11, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. Pacific time (6:00 p.m. Eastern time) to discuss these results. AEye’s CEO, Blair LaCorte, and CFO, Bob Brown, will host the call, followed by a question-and-answer session.

The webcast and accompanying slides will be accessible via the company’s website at https://investors.aeye.ai/.

The call is also accessible via telephone through the following details:

Dial in Information:

• US/CANADA Participant Toll-Free Dial-In Number: (844) 253-4108
• US/CANADA Participant International Dial-In Number: (225) 239-4721
  
  Conference ID: 9789399

About AEye

AEye is the premier provider of intelligent, next generation, adaptive LiDAR for vehicle autonomy, ADAS, and robotic vision applications. AEye’s Intelligent Detection and Ranging iDAR™ system and 4Sight™ products leverage biomimicry and principles from automated targeting applications used by the military to scan the environment, intelligently focusing on what matters most, enabling faster, more accurate, and more reliable perception. iDAR is the only software configurable LiDAR with integrated deterministic artificial intelligence, delivering industry-leading performance in range, resolution, and speed. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The non-GAAP measures provided in this press release should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the United States. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial data is included in the supplemental financial data attached to this press release. Non-GAAP financial measures do not have any standardized meaning and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. AEye considers these non-GAAP financial measures to be important because they provide additional insight into the Company’s on-going performance. The Company provides this information to investors for a more consistent basis of comparison and to help investors evaluate the results of the Company’s on-going operations, and to help enable more meaningful period-to-period comparison. Non-GAAP financial measures are presented only as supplemental information for purposes of understanding the Company’s operating results. The non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

This presentation includes non-GAAP financial measures, including Adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as GAAP net loss plus stock-based compensation, plus expenses related to the registration statement on Form S-1 on behalf of selling stockholders, plus change in fair value of embedded derivative and warrant liabilities, plus the gain on our PPP loan forgiveness, plus amortization and depreciation expense, plus interest expense, less interest income.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are sometimes accompanied by words such as “believe,” “continue,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “predict,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “outlook,” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends, or that are not statements of historical matters. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as and must not be relied on by an investor as a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction, or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are very difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from the assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of AEye. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) the risks that the positive customer and partnership momentum will not continue or produce the expected results in the timeframe anticipated; (ii) the risks that the approach to the market of Company may not yield the results expected or in the timeframe anticipated; (iii) the risks that the Company’s licensing model for ADAS and direct sales into the industrial and mobility markets may not be successful or yield results in the timeframe expected; (iv) the risks that AEye may not achieve its goal to deliver reliable, cost-effective, and high-performance products that accelerate the adoption of LiDAR; (v) the risks that Continental may not be able to successfully establish a manufacturing line for the AEye-based long-range LiDAR sensor; (vi) the risks that the Continental product may not go into large-scale series production in 2024, or at all; (vii) the risks that AEye will be unable to transition its manufacturing of its 4Sight M product to Sanmina in the fourth quarter of 2021, or at all; (viii) the risks that Continental’s integration of AEye’s LiDAR technology into their full-stack automotive-grade system will not be successful or achieve market acceptance; (ix) the risks that lidar adoption occurs slower than anticipated or fails to occur at all; (x) the risks that competing technologies will improve overtime to become operationally equivalent or more cost-effective, or both; (xi) the risks that competitors may introduce into the market products similar in capabilities to the integrated solution and such competitive solution takes some or all of the market share away from the AEye; (xii) the risks that AEye’s products will not meet the diverse range of performance and functional requirements of AEye’s target markets and customers; (xiii) the risks that AEye’s products will not function as anticipated by AEye or by AEye’s target markets and customers; (xiv) the risks that the size of the total available market for the use of LiDAR will be smaller than predicted or take longer to come to fruition than predicted; (xv) the risk that laws and regulations are adopted impacting the use of lidar that AEye is unable to comply with, in whole or in part; (xvi) changes in competitive and regulated industries in which AEye operates, variations in operating performance across competitors, and changes in laws and regulations affecting AEye’s business; (xvii) the risk that AEye is unable to adequately implement its business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities, (xviii) the potential inability of AEye to scale its manufacturing capacity or to achieve efficiencies regarding its manufacturing processes or other costs; and (xix) the risk of downturns and a changing regulatory landscape in the highly competitive and evolving industry in which AEye operates. These risks and uncertainties may be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused significant economic uncertainty. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of the registration statement on Form S-4, that includes a definitive proxy statement/prospectus, that AEye (formerly known as CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III) filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and other documents filed by AEye or that will be filed by AEye from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made.

Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements; AEye assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. AEye gives no assurance that AEye will achieve any of its expectations.

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