Canoo, Fisker Inc., Lordstown Motors and Nikola Corp. Four electric vehicle startups have also skipped the traditional IPO path in recent months, opting instead to go public through a merger agreement with a SPAC, which are also known as blank check companies. In June, Velodyne Lidar struck a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company Graf Industrial Corp., with a market value of $1.8 billion. Luminar is the latest startup - and second lidar company - to turn to SPACs this summer in lieu of a traditional IPO process. But the momentum from the Volvo deal along with interest within public markets led the company to take the SPAC route, Russell said. Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell told TechCrunch that they wanted to go public at some point. The Luminar technology will be used to deploy an automated driving system for highways. The SPAC merger comes just three months after Luminar hit a critical milestone and announced that Volvo would start producing vehicles in 2022 equipped with its lidar and a perception stack.

Gores Metropoulos, which is listed on the Nasdaq exchange, is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, sponsored by an affiliate of The Gores Group, the global investment firm founded in the late 1980s by Alec Gores. Luminar, the lidar startup that burst onto the autonomous vehicle scene in April 2017 after operating for years in secrecy, is merging with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos Inc., with a post-deal market valuation of $3.4 billion.

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