LG Innotek revealed as Aeva partner with 'up to' $50M investment

29 Jul 2025

Deal with Korean technology giant should help US startup's advanced lidar technology penetrate broader suite of applications.

Production boost for passenger OEM lidar

LG Innotek, the Seoul-headquartered technology firm that leads the market in smart phone camera modules, has agreed to invest up to $50 million in the US-based lidar company Aeva.

The equity deal, agreed in May but only now revealed to be with LG Innotek, is said to be non-dilutive, and part of a wider strategic collaboration that should help Aeva both increase production for automotive use, and penetrate new applications with its frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) lidar technology.

Total mobility solution
Thus far the Silicon Valley company has been largely focused on applications in autonomous logistics, where it has established a key relationship with Daimler Trucks and its subsidiary Torc Robotics that promises to make autonomous trucking a reality in the next couple of years.

But the FMCW approach, which relies on complex photonic components but can be miniaturized to chip-scale modules, is able to monitor both the position and velocity of objects in its field of view, adding an extra dimension to its industrial utility.

“This multi-faceted collaboration will enable Aeva to accelerate the commercialization of its breakthrough FMCW perception platform to a wide range of industries and new applications across automotive, industrial automation, robotics, and consumer devices,” announced Aeva.

Hyuksoo Moon, the CEO of LG Innotek, added: “The ultimate goal of this partnership is for LG Innotek and Aeva to grow together as key players leading the next-generation lidar market through a long-term technology partnership that goes beyond the supply of products.

“Starting with this collaboration with Aeva, LG Innotek will continue to expand its lidar product line-up, which delivers differentiated customer value, and further solidify its position in the global market as a total mobility solution provider for the future.”

Back in May Aeva said that the equity investment, which would give LG Innotek around a 6 per cent stake in the lidar firm, would also help it meet demand from a “global top-ten” maker of passenger vehicles using its “Atlas Ultra” lidar, with a start-of-production date slated for 2027.

'Physical AI'
Just last week Aeva said that additional support from Daimler Truck was set to help it reach an annual production capacity goal of 200,000 units.

The company now says that the LG Innotek collaboration will establish the foundation to accelerate the adoption of Aeva’s FMCW-based perception platform into what it called “Physical AI” - defined as where intelligent systems equipped with sensors, processing, and AI software can perceive, understand, and interact with the physical world in real time.

“By combining Aeva’s breakthrough perception platform, consisting of its FMCW lidar-on-chip sensor, a custom processing system-on-chip and perception software, with LG Innotek’s global scale and cross-industry leadership, the two companies will develop new sensing and perception solutions,” announced the two firms.

Initially the partnership is intended to advance the technology’s adoption in automotive applications, where LG Innotek will manufacture Aeva’s Atlas Ultra sensor, in part to meet demand for the passenger OEM deal already mentioned.

Humanoid robot 'eyes'
Beyond automotive, Aeva and LG Innotek will aim to co-develop new sensing and perception products for industrial automation both indoors and outdoors, while expanding to new use cases in robotics - where the Korean firm is already a major player in optical sensors.

They also plan to explore new product opportunities in emerging consumer applications for FMCW lidar, with potential seen in smart phones, tablets, AR/VR headsets, smart appliances, and home robotics.

Part of the wider LG technology group, LG Innotek is an acknowledged leader in mobile imaging, and recently agreed to develop a new vision sensing system that will serve as the “eyes” of Boston Dynamics' latest humanoid robots - coincidentally also called "Atlas".

Aeva’s CEO Soroush Salehian said: “Together, we see a tremendous opportunity to bring Aeva’s perception platform to a wide range of applications - wherever machines need to perceive and understand their surroundings.

“LG Innotek is a global leader in cutting-edge technology components and their decision to collaborate with Aeva underscores the growing recognition of FMCW as the future of sensing and perception technology.”