Velodyne Lidar Shares Soar On Amazon Warrant Deal: What Investors Should Know

Shares of a leading lidar company are soaring after market close Monday, after reporting the purchase of warrants by ecommerce leader Amazon.com Inc AMZN.

What Happened: Velodyne Lidar Inc VLDR said in an 8K filing that Amazon has acquired 39,594,032 warrants good for the purchase of common shares of the company’s stock.

The vesting of the warrants is based on discretionary payments made by Amazon to the company, according to the filing.

Amazon will receive warrants in relations to an existing commercial agreement between the company and Velodyne.

The filing said the existing agreement includes using Velodyne’s technology to improve the customer experience for Amazon.

The warrants will vest over time based on the payments made by Amazon to Velodyne of up to $200 million.

After vesting, the warrants may be exercised at any time before Feb. 4, 2030 at an exercise price of $4.18 per share.

Related Link: 6 Lidar SPACs For Investors To Consider On Apple News 

Why It’s Important: Velodyne is one of several pure-play lidar companies that went public via SPAC merger, with a deal completed in September 2020.

Velodyne reported 35 active multi-year agreements with customers as of Nov. 1, 2021. The company has shipped over 4,400 sensor units in the third quarter.

The company also reported a pipeline of 220 projects at the end of the third quarter.

Third quarter revenue totaled $13.1 million for Velodyne. The company guided for full year revenue to come in a range of $60 million to $63 million.

Velodyne will report fourth quarter financial results on Feb. 28 and could update on the partnership between itself and Amazon.

Price Action: VLDR shares are up 87% to $7.05 in after-hours trading Monday at the time of writing. Shares have traded between $3.13 and $24.70 over the last 52-weeks.

Photo: Courtesy of velodynelidar.com