Cepton in Troy Closes on $100M Investment from Japan’s Koito Manufacturing
Posted By: DBUSINESS on January 23, 2023. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
Cepton Inc., a Silicon Valley provider of high performance lidar solutions with a Center of Excellence in Troy, has completed its previously announced $100 million investment from its long-term automotive Tier 1 partner and current shareholder Koito Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of Japan.
The investment, in the form of convertible preferred stock, was approved at a special meeting of Cepton stockholders on Jan. 11 and is convertible, beginning on the first anniversary of the issue date, into shares of Cepton’s common stock at an initial conversion price of $2.585 per share.
“We’re happy to announce the closing of the preferred stock investment as we deepen our partnership with Koito,” says Jun Pei, co-founder and CEO of Cepton. “We plan to deploy the additional capital to help fund our next stage of growth, continue series production execution, and expand our collaboration efforts towards winning additional automotive OEM programs.”
Michiaki Kato, president of Koito, says: “We’re excited to have completed our third investment in Cepton, which solidifies our commitment to lidar and increasing automotive safety for drivers worldwide. This is an important year for us as we work towards commercialization and scale manufacturing of our lidar products. We have a strong track record with Cepton as a partner and look forward to achieving our mutual goal of becoming the leader within lidar.”
Additional details regarding the close of the investment will be included in a Form 8-K to be filed by Cepton with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
ICR Capital served as financial advisor to Cepton and O’Melveny & Myers served as legal counsel to Cepton. SMBC Nikko served as financial advisor to Koito and Davis Polk and Wardwell, and Nishimura and Asahi served as legal counsel to Koito.
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