Innoviz Technologies

Innoviz Technologies was founded in 2016 by Omer Keilaf, Oren Rosenzweig, Oren Buskila, and Amit Steinberg, alumni of IDF Unit 81. The company is headquartered in Rosh HaAyin, Israel. It is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker INVZ following a SPAC merger in April 2021. The core product is solid-state LiDAR sensors and perception software for autonomous driving. In early 2024, Innoviz announced a restructuring that included a workforce reduction of approximately 13% to extend its cash runway.

The primary product lines focus on LiDAR hardware and perception software. These systems provide high-resolution 3D point cloud data required for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, operating in lighting and weather conditions where cameras and radar fall short. The technology is sold to automotive OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers. The technical moat centers on proprietary MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) and custom ASICs designed to shrink the physical footprint and lower production costs compared to traditional spinning mechanical LiDARs.

InnovizOne is the company's first automotive-grade solid-state LiDAR, selected by BMW for Level 3 autonomous vehicle integration. InnovizTwo was developed subsequently to offer improved performance at a lower price point, targeting broader integration into Level 2+ and Level 3 passenger vehicles, and was selected by Volkswagen's CARIAD division. Innoviz360 was introduced as a spinning LiDAR model for 360-degree coverage applications and non-automotive use cases. The hardware is paired with proprietary perception software that translates raw point-cloud data into object detection, classification, and tracking metrics.

Innoviz competes directly with public LiDAR companies such as Luminar Technologies, Ouster, Hesai, and Valeo. Unlike Luminar's 1550nm wavelength approach, Innoviz uses a 905nm system combined with MEMS to optimize for mass-production costs. The company holds major contracted design wins, notably the 2018 BMW agreement (partnered with Magna) and a multi-billion dollar forward-looking order book with VW announced in 2022. The company faces sector-wide headwinds, as delayed autonomous vehicle timelines from OEMs have caused significant stock price contractions and cash-preservation measures across the LiDAR industry.

The headquarters and primary R&D center are located in Rosh HaAyin, employing the vast majority of its workforce of several hundred people. The founders and many technical leaders originated from IDF Unit 81, which serves as a natural talent pipeline for hardware and electro-optics engineering in Israel. The local site primarily hires for hardware engineering, optics, algorithm development, and embedded software. The Rosh HaAyin office was impacted by the early 2024 headcount reductions as the company adjusted its cash burn rate.