AEye and CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III Announce Continental AG’s Participation in $225 Million Pipe Offering

AEye, Inc., (“AEye”) the global leader in active, high-performance LiDAR solutions and CF Finance Acquisition Corp. III (“CF III”; Nasdaq: CFAC), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald, today announced that Continental AG is participating in the PIPE offering connected with the company’s recently announced merger agreement. Continental, a leading Tier 1 automotive supplier, previously made a minority investment in AEye in October 2020.

Blair LaCorte, CEO of AEye said, “We are thrilled that Continental, a valued partner and strategic investor, is participating in our $225 million PIPE offering, along with top tier institutional and strategic investors including GM Ventures, Subaru-SBI, Intel Capital, Hella Ventures and Taiwania Capital. AEye’s highly complementary partnership with Continental combines our leading, active, high-performance LiDAR with their powerhouse Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) supply universe. Together, we are well positioned to deliver ADAS solutions that will increase vehicle safety and enable new performance features, such as highway pilot. Continental’s continued investment underscores our strong relationship, and their commitment to AEye and our game-changing active LiDAR technology.”

Frank Petznick, Continental’s Head of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit said, “We are very excited to further our investment in AEye and proud to partner with their team to deliver state-of-the art long range, high performance LiDAR sensors to enable new compelling features such as highway pilot, and integrate these sensors in vehicles in volume starting in 2024 models for OEMs, globally. Our broad partnership combines two industry leading teams of LiDAR engineers from three continents to bring best-in-class automotive grade autonomous driving solutions to market.”

AEye’s iDAR is a proprietary active sensing, intelligent LiDAR that delivers industry-leading performance and addresses the most difficult challenges facing autonomous driving. While traditional sensing systems passively collect data, AEye’s active LiDAR leverages principles from automated targeting systems and biomimicry to scan everything while intelligently focusing on what matters in order to enable safer, smarter, and faster decisions in complex scenarios. As a result, AEye’s LiDAR uniquely enables higher levels of autonomous functionality (SAE L2-L5) at the optimal performance, power, and price.