Ouster (company)


Ouster is a lidar technology company based in San Francisco, it builds high-resolution 3D lidar sensors for use in autonomous vehicles, robotics, drones, mapping, mining, defense and more. Its sensors produce camera-like images from ambient infrared, with software-focused mapping that reduces the need for high precision GPS systems, wheel odometry or gyroscopes.

History

Angus Pacala and Mark Frichtl founded Ouster in 2015, along with two other former Stanford University classmates, after working at laser-based sensing company Quanergy.
Ouster launched out of stealth in December 2017, and in 2019 it raised an additional $60 million in funding following a $27 million series A. The latter round — which was led by Runway Growth Capital, with contributions from Silicon Valley Bank, Cox Enterprises, Constellation Tech Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Carthona Capital, and others — brought the company’s total raised to $90 million.

Operations

Ouster has gained more than 700 design wins across 15 different industries in 50 countries; the company expanded its business to Europe and Asia in 2019, opening new offices in Paris, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Its sensors are on Postmates’ robots in sidewalks of Los Angeles, Kodiak’s trucks on the highways of Texas, and on drones in the DARPA SubT challenge coal mines of Pennsylvania in 2019.
Ouster's OS1 lidar sensors provide the Postmates 'Serve' Autonomous Delivery Rover with the ability to sense, classify, and understand its immediate environment.
In 2019 Ouster was selected by autonomous trucking startup Ike as a primary Lidar supplier to bring automated trucking to market. It is also working with Coast Autonomous as Coast begins to ramp up production of self-driving passenger shuttles and autonomous utility vehicles.
From 2019 Ouster has also been working with NVIDIA and Volvo Trucks to develop a scalable self-driving system for commercial use.
In 2020 Ouster partnered with Chinese robotics company iDriverplus to provide lidar sensors for autonomous cleaning robots. After China entered into a state of emergency due to COVID-19, the two companies partnered to outfit a fleet of robots with OS1-64 lidar sensors. The unmanned cleaning and disinfection vehicles were equipped with OS1-64 lidar sensors on the top and front of the robots providing 360° 3D environmental monitoring and more accurate obstacle recognition.

Models

Awards and recognition