SAN FRANCISCO – Ouster, Inc. (NYSE: OUST) (“Ouster” or the “Company”), a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors, today announced that it signed a strategic customer agreement with Third Wave Automation, a provider of versatile and effective autonomous solutions for the material handling industry. The agreement includes a forecast for over five thousand OS sensors through 2025 to equip robotic material handling vehicles with 3D digital lidar, a key component of Third Wave’s autonomous driving sensor suite.
Powered by its proprietary advanced perception software and collaborative autonomy platform, Third Wave Automation combines hybrid autonomous vehicles, intelligent fleet management, remote operation, and assistance capabilities to provide holistic material handling solutions that improve over time. Vehicles, such as forklifts, will be equipped with up to four Ouster sensors to carry out tasks such as object detection, localization, and mapping. The Third Wave Automation solution can be built into new material handling vehicles, including those developed through its strategic partnership with Toyota Industrial Corporation. The system offers the ability for vehicles to operate in manual, remote control, or fully autonomous modes, providing the end customer with flexibility in task management.
“After a series of tests with several other lidar technologies, we selected Ouster’s OS sensors for their high resolution and reliability, along with their ability to detect obstacles close to the vehicle,” said Mac Mason, Co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer at Third Wave. “We view Ouster as the performance leader in 3D lidar and as a dependable long-term partner to scale with as Third Wave’s business grows.”
As global supply chain automation continues to accelerate, Ouster expects its total addressable market for the industrial vertical to reach an estimated $2.1 billion by 20251. This is driven in part by the material handling equipment market, which is expected to expand from $212 billion in 2019 to $321 billion by 20272, representing a significant opportunity to capture demand for automation across warehouses, manufacturing floors, ports, and distribution yards.
“Ouster continues to win new customers in the industrial vertical, which is ripe for automation with 3D digital lidar. Third Wave is one of the leading material handling automation upstarts poised to scale rapidly across our warehouse and logistics submarkets,” said Nate Dickerman, President of Field Operations at Ouster. “Our two companies see an incredible opportunity to help modernize the supply chain through automated technologies that increase safety, efficiency, and productivity.”
About Third Wave Automation
Third Wave Automation (TWA) was founded in 2018 in Union City, CA, in order to alleviate increasing supply chain stress using intelligent automation products and services. Leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to create its Collaborative Autonomy Platform, TWA brings humans and automated systems together to improve throughput, efficiency and safety beyond what either humans or automation could achieve alone. The Collaborative Autonomy Platform combines hybrid autonomous vehicles, intelligent fleet management, remote operation and assistance capabilities to provide holistic materials handling solutions that improve over time. TWA’s platform requires no infrastructure upgrades, integrates into existing workflows and delivers immediate value to customers on deployment. For more information, visit thirdwave.ai.
About Ouster
Ouster (NYSE: OUST) is building a safer and more sustainable future through its high-resolution digital lidar sensors for the automotive, industrial, smart infrastructure, and robotics industries. Ouster’s sensors offer an excellent combination of price and performance with the flexibility to span hundreds of use-cases and enable revolutionary autonomy across industries. With a global team and high-volume manufacturing, Ouster supports approximately 600 customers in over 50 countries. Ouster is headquartered in San Francisco, CA with offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.ouster.com, or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding Ouster’s financial outlook, market positioning, and anticipated results. Forward-looking statements give Ouster’s current expectations and projections relating to its financial condition, competitive position, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance and growth, potential revenue opportunity from Strategic Customer Agreements, including the possibility that they may not translate into revenue, future orders, total addressable market, and business. Any statements regarding the doubling of the Company’s contracted revenue opportunity do not speak to expectations for any periods beyond 2022. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. These statements may include words such as “anticipate”, “estimate”, “expect”, “project”, “plan”, “intend”, “believe”, “may”, “will”, “should”, “can have”, “likely” and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of the timing or nature of future operating or financial performance or other events. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expected, including: Ouster’s limited operating history and history of losses; the negotiating power and product standards of its customers; fluctuations in its operating results; cancellation or postponement of contracts or unsuccessful implementations; the adoption of its products and the growth of the lidar market generally; its ability to grow its sales and marketing organization; substantial research and development costs needed to develop and commercialize new products; the competitive environment in which it operates; selection of our products for inclusion in target markets; its future capital needs; its ability to use tax attributes; its dependence on key third party suppliers, in particular Benchmark Electronics, Inc., and manufacturers; ability to maintain inventory and the risk of inventory write-downs; inaccurate forecasts of market growth; its ability to manage growth; the creditworthiness of our customers; risks related to acquisitions; risks related to international operations; risks of product delivery problems or defects; costs associated with product warranties; its ability to keep its competitive edge and maintain competitive average selling prices or high sales volumes or reduce product costs; conditions in its customers industries; its ability to recruit and retain key personnel; its use of professional employer organizations; its ability to timely and adequately protect and enforce its intellectual property rights; its ability to effectively respond to evolving regulations and standards; risks related to operating as a public company; risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic; and other important factors discussed in the Company’s final prospectus and definitive proxy statement, dated February 12, 2021, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), as updated by the factors disclosed in the section titled “Risk Factors” in its final prospectus filed with the SEC and dated August 19, 2021 and in Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 28, 2022. Any such forward-looking statements represent management’s estimates and beliefs as of the date of this press release. While Ouster may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, other than as required by law, it disclaims any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause its views to change.
1Ouster TAM estimate sources: McKinsey & Company; Automotive software and electronics 2030; Ouster internal estimates; Unit demand estimates from government data and internal estimates.
2October 2020 issue of Fortune Business Insights, Material Handling Equipment Market Report.
