MICROVISION INC

Overview

MicroVision, Inc. is a global developer and supplier of lidar hardware and software solutions focused primarily on automotive lidar and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) markets where we can deliver safe mobility at the speed of life. We offer a suite of light detection and ranging, or lidar, sensors and perception and validation software to automotive OEMs, for ADAS and autonomous vehicle (AV) applications, as well as to complementary markets for non-automotive applications including industrial, robotics and smart infrastructure. Our long history of developing and commercializing the core components of our lidar hardware and related software, combined with the experience of the team acquired from Ibeo Automotive Systems (Ibeo) with automotive-grade qualification, gives us a compelling advantage as a development and commercial partner.

Founded in 1993, MicroVision, Inc. is a pioneer in laser beam scanning, or LBS technology, which is based on our patented expertise in micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS, laser diodes, opto-mechanics, electronics, algorithms and software and how those elements are packaged into a small form factor. Throughout our history, we have combined our proprietary technology with our development expertise to create innovative solutions to address existing and emerging market needs, such as augmented reality microdisplay engines; interactive display modules; consumer lidar components; and, most recently, automotive lidar sensors and software solutions for the automotive market.

In January, 2023, we acquired certain strategic assets of Germany-based Ibeo, which was founded in 1998 as a lidar hardware and software provider. Ibeo developed and launched the first lidar sensor to be automotive qualified for serial production with a Tier 1 automotive supplier and that is currently available in passenger cars by premium OEMs. Ibeo developed software solutions, including perception and validation software, which are also used by premium OEMs. In addition, Ibeo sold its products for non-automotive uses such as industrial, smart infrastructure and robotics applications.

For the automotive market, our integrated solution combines our MEMS-based dynamic-range lidar sensor and perception software, to be integrated on our custom ASIC, targeted for sale to premium automotive OEMs and Tier 1 automotive suppliers. Our ADAS solution is intended to leverage edge computing and custom ASICs to enable our hardware and perception software to be integrated into an OEM’s ADAS stack.

In addition to our dynamic-range and long-range MAVIN sensor and perception software solution for the automotive market, our product suite includes our short-range flash-based MOVIA lidar sensor, for automotive and industrial applications, including smart infrastructure, robotics, and other commercial segments. Also, our validation software tool, the MOSAIK suite, is used by OEMs and other customers including Tier 1s for validating vehicle sensors for ADAS and AV applications. The tool includes software that automates the manual data classification or annotation process, significantly reducing the time and resources required by OEMs to validate their ADAS and AV systems.

In the recent past, we developed micro-display concepts and designs for use in head-mounted augmented reality, or AR, headsets and developed a 1440i MEMS module supporting AR headsets. We also developed an interactive display solution targeted at the smart speakers market and a small consumer lidar sensor for use indoors with smart home systems.

We completed the acquisition of assets from Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH, which we refer to throughout this report as Ibeo, on January 31, 2023 pursuant to the terms and subject to the conditions of the Asset Purchase Agreement, dated December 1, 2022, and amended as of January 31, 2023, by and between our wholly owned subsidiary, MicroVision GmbH organized under the laws of The Federal Republic of Germany, and Ibeo for a purchase price of EUR 15.0 million, or approximately $16.3 million, subject to potential reduction on the terms set forth in the Asset Purchase Agreement. Pursuant to the Asset Purchase Agreement, the purchase price also included advanced funds to Ibeo so that it could continue its operations while in insolvency during the period between signing and closing. Specifically, we advanced to Ibeo EUR 3.9 million, or approximately $4.1 million in December 2022; EUR 2.7 million, or approximately $3.0 million in January 2023; and EUR 0.6 million, or approximately $0.7 million in February 2023 shortly after the closing. These fund advances included amounts related to headcount reductions carried out by Ibeo management, decreasing the number of employees to transfer in connection with the acquisition to approximately 250 employees. These headcount reduction costs of approximately EUR 2.3 million, or approximately $2.5 million, were reimbursed to MicroVision by way of deduction from the purchase price in accordance with the Asset Purchase Agreement.

Although our development and productization efforts are now solely focused on our lidar sensors and related software solutions, our revenue in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 was largely derived from one customer, Microsoft Corporation, related to components that we developed for a high-definition display system. Our arrangement with this customer generated royalty income, which will not continue in future periods.

To date, we have been unable to secure customers at the scale needed to successfully launch our products. We have incurred significant losses since inception and we expect to continue to incur significant losses in the near term. We have funded our operations to date primarily through the sale of common stock, convertible preferred stock, warrants, the issuance of convertible debt and, to a lesser extent, from development contract revenues, product sales and licensing activities.

MicroVision, Inc. was founded in 1993 as a Washington corporation and reincorporated in 2003 under the laws of the State of Delaware. Our headquarters is located at 18390 NE 68th Street, Redmond, Washington 98052, and our telephone number is (425) 936-6847.

Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports are available free-of-charge from the investor page of our website, accessible at www.microvision.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Copies of these filings may also be obtained by visiting the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov, which contains current, quarterly and annual reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that file electronically.

Our Industry and Market Strategy

We are developing lidar sensors and perception software to address the needs of the Level 2+, or L2+, and Level 3, or L3, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) markets to be used in automotive safety and autonomous driving applications. Our micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS-based high-speed lidar sensors, which we call MAVIN™, use our pioneering laser beam scanning (LBS) technology. Our solution-based development approach recognizes two key realities of the L2+ and L3 markets: that safety is mission critical and that OEMs require cost efficiency and integration adaptability. With these factors in mind, we believe that our best-in-class MAVIN lidar sensors support critical safety needs by providing the highest resolution at range and velocity of moving objects with a dynamic field of view while running at 30 hertz, thus enabling ADAS features, such as automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, and automatic emergency steering, at higher speeds of operation than most competing products.

Moreover, we tailor our solution to meet the needs of OEMs, integrating our MEMS-based lidar and edge computing to support Highway Pilot capabilities up to 130km/h, save development cost and time for OEMs with no training required for our sensor-fused output, reduce system cost by requiring fewer and cheaper sensors and reduced processing, and enable seamless integration with an OEM’s existing architecture. Our unique solution for the L2+ and L3 markets, we believe, has the potential to achieve our goal of enabling mission-critical safety systems while solving for OEMs’ cost and integration objectives.

With this customer-centric approach, our go-to-market strategy depends on building partnerships with OEMs and Tier-1 automotive suppliers, as well as with silicon companies to support our solution on their compute platforms. Although we are working to establish direct marketing and co-development relationships with OEMs, we could also derive revenue directly from Tier-1 suppliers in the form of licensing revenue.

Our Technology and Competitive Strength

We believe a significant competitive strength for us today is our long history of delivering LBS- and MEMS-based hardware and related firmware and software that meets reliability, predictability, and scalability standards of well-known OEMs and ODMs.

Core to our automotive lidar sensors, custom ASICs and perception software is proprietary technology that we have been developing, refining, productizing and protecting for nearly 30 years. Our patented LBS technology combines a MEMS scanning mirror, laser diode light sources, electronics, and optics that are controlled using our proprietary system control algorithms along with edge computing and machine learning in some systems. The MEMS scanning mirror is a key component of our technology system and is one of our core competencies. Our MEMS scanning mirror is a silicon device that oscillates in a precisely controlled closed loop pattern so that we can place a pixel of light at a precise point. This allows us to generate a projected image pixel-by-pixel for use in lidar sensing and display. Scanning modules with our technology can be designed to operate in one of three different modes: lidar sensing only, display and lidar sensing combined, and display only. We believe that our proprietary technology offers significant advantages over other lidar sensing systems and traditional displays.

Early applications of our proprietary technology included heads up displays for the U.S. military and automotive systems. The contemplated uses of our technology require incorporation of our components into the products of other companies or partners. Most recently, our technology can be found in a Microsoft heads up display product. In the past, we have worked with other global brands to incorporate our core technology into their consumer products.

The MAVIN DR, our dynamic-range automotive lidar sensor is designed to, and we believe can, meet or exceed OEM specifications, performing to 220 meters of range with an output resolution of up to 15.0 million points per second. Our hardware delivers a high point cloud density for a single-channel sensor as compared to competitive products. In addition to providing a low-latency, high-resolution point cloud at range, our sensor outputs axial, lateral, and vertical components of velocity of moving objects in the field of view at 30 hertz. This allows our solution to support a detailed understanding of the velocity of moving objects in real time, enabling fast and accurate path planning and maneuvering of the vehicle. Further, our proprietary scan locking feature ensures that our sensor is immune from interference from sunlight and from other lidar sensors.

Our Products and Revenue Strategy

Following our acquisition of assets from Ibeo, our product suite includes our MEMS-based high-speed automotive lidar sensors, perception software, flash-based automotive lidar sensor, lidar sensors for non-automotive industrial markets, and reference and validation software. We also provide engineering services in connection with these hardware and software products.

Central to our development and commercialization efforts is our MAVIN DR dynamic view lidar system targeted for sale to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 automotive suppliers. MAVIN DR combines short-, medium- and long-range sensing and fields of view into one form factor. Dynamic range is key to enabling ADAS features at highway speeds. At speeds of up to 130 km/h (80 mph), ADAS systems need more time to make decisions and react in order to take proactive action and hence need resolution at range. Our MAVIN DR sensor produces an ultra-high-resolution point cloud showing drivable and non-drivable areas of the road ahead. With its low latency point cloud (30 hertz), we believe the MAVIN product line allows ADAS systems to respond more quickly, make split-second decisions and take action at high speeds.

Our perception software integrated with our automotive lidar hardware, and eventually ported into our digital ASIC, is also targeted for sale to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 automotive suppliers. This perception software, included in our acquisition of assets from Ibeo, was developed in collaboration with an OEM customer and successfully passed through that OEM’s development qualification processes.

Also stemming from our acquisition of assets are our flash-based sensors, suitable for short- and mid-range use by customers in the automotive market, as well as non-automotive industrial markets. These solid-state sensors, comprising our MOVIA line of lidar sensors, are based on technology developed according to automotive-grade standards, featuring variable scan frequency, high resolution, a modular optics concept, and low power consumption. The availability of our MOVIA sensors support a revenue strategy that includes royalty revenues from automotive production, as well as sales in multiple markets including industrial, smart infrastructure, robotics, and commercial vehicles.

Our acquisition allows us to offer a system solution for validating vehicle sensors for ADAS and AV applications. This system, which we have branded MOSAIK, includes software that automates the manual data classification or annotation process. We believe the MOSAIK solution significantly reduces the time and resources required by OEMs to validate their ADAS and AV systems. In addition to the auto-annotation software, sales of this validation solution may include our lidar sensors.

Research and Development

We believe our research and development efforts have earned us a leadership position in the field of lidar sensors, LBS technology and applications as applied to automotive, consumer electronics and other markets. Our ability to attract customers and grow revenue will depend on our ability to maintain our technology leadership, to continually improve performance, reduce costs, and ensure functional safety and flexible design. Our research and development teams as of December 31, 2023 were located in Redmond, Washington, Hamburg, Germany and Nuremberg, Germany and were comprised of approximately 270 engineering and technical staff in optics, software engineering, electrical engineering, product engineering, and MEMS design.

Sales and Marketing

Our sales and marketing approach is account based, business-to-business targeting of automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers and potential customers in several industrial markets. Our business development efforts are headed by executive management and business development representatives and are supported by engineers that assist customers during the design cycles of products. We have business development offices for our automotive and industrial solutions located in Germany and the United States. We engage potential customers directly, participate in trade shows, and maintain a website.

Manufacturing

We continue to invest in our manufacturing capabilities, evaluating long-term Tier 1 relationships and establishing new relationships with contract manufacturers, as we drive toward our goal of serving as a Tier 1 supplier to automotive OEM customers. While our current partner is manufacturing limited volumes and we are not otherwise manufacturing our products at significant volume at this time, in the past, when we have produced products or components, our products were manufactured by a contract manufacturer based on our proprietary design, process, test, quality, and reliability standards and incorporated our LBS technology and included MEMS and ASICs that were produced to order by semiconductor foundries. Our past manufacturing has not been subject to seasonal variations as our shipments have been relatively small and were in the early stages of product introduction. In the future, depending on our customers’ product mix, we may be affected by seasonal fluctuations which could affect working capital demands. Many of the raw materials used in our components are standard, although our MEMS, MEMS die, and ASICs have historically been manufactured to our specifications by separate single-source suppliers.

Competitive Conditions

Many companies are attempting to develop lidar sensors and ADAS solutions; the competitive landscape is highly crowded and rapidly evolving. We compete with pureplay lidar developers, some of which have recently completed de-SPAC transactions raising significant capital. Some of these companies have announced partnerships with OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and contract manufacturers that, even if nonexclusive, may appear more credible than we do in the marketplace. We also face competition from OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers that have internally developed lidar sensors. All of these OEMs and Tier 1s are significantly larger, more well-resourced, have long operating histories and enjoy relevant brand recognition. Many lidar developers are also building ADAS solutions with which our solution competes. Our competitors may succeed in developing innovative technologies and products that could render our technology or products commercially infeasible or technologically obsolete.

The lidar sensing industry has been characterized by rapid and significant technological advances. Our LBS technology system and products may not be competitive with such advances, and we may not have sufficient funds to invest in new technologies, products or processes. Although we believe our technology system and products could deliver higher performance and have other advantages, manufacturers of competing technologies may develop improvements to their technology that could reduce or eliminate the anticipated advantages of our products.

Intellectual Property and Proprietary Rights

We create intellectual property from three sources: internal research and development activities, technology acquisitions, and performance on development contracts. The inventions covered by our patent applications generally relate to systems controls in our LBS technology, component miniaturization, power reduction, feature enhancements, specific implementation of various system components, and design elements to facilitate mass production. Protecting these key-enabling technologies and components is a fundamental aspect of our strategy to penetrate diverse markets with unique products. As such, we intend to continue to develop our portfolio of proprietary and patented technologies at the system, component, and process levels.

We believe our extensive patent portfolio is the largest, broadest, and earliest filed LBS technology portfolio. We currently have over 700 issued patents and pending patents worldwide, including approximately 330 patents we acquired in the acquisition from Ibeo in January 2023. As our technology develops, we periodically review our patent portfolio and eliminate patents that are deemed of low value. Due to this ongoing portfolio management practice, the number of patents in our portfolio will vary at any given time.

Since our inception in 1993, we have acquired through portfolio purchases, patents that grant us exclusive rights to various LBS technologies. From time to time some of these patents may expire or be abandoned to better utilize resources expended to maintain and generate new intellectual property.

Our ability to compete effectively in automotive lidar or any other market we may enter may depend, in part, on our ability and the ability of our licensors to maintain the proprietary nature of these technologies.

We also rely on unpatented proprietary technology. To protect our rights in these areas, we require all employees, and where appropriate, contractors, consultants, advisors and collaborators, to enter into confidentiality and non-compete agreements. There can be no assurance, however, that these agreements will provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use, misappropriation or disclosure of such trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information.

We have registered the name “MAVIN™,” “MOVIA™,” “MOSAIK™, “SAFE MOBILITY AT THE SPEED OF LIFE,” “PicoP®” and “MicroVision®” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in various foreign countries.

Our Employees, People Operations and Workplace Safety

At the end of fiscal year 2023, throughout our global offices, we had approximately 340 predominantly full-time employees. We do not hire seasonal workers and none of our employees are represented by a labor union or works council.

Our principal objectives with respect to our workforce are to attract, retain, motivate, and reward our employees to achieve positive results for our customers and for MicroVision. To achieve these objectives, our employee benefit programs seek to (i) support skill building and prepare our employees for advancement through continuous learning, (ii) reward our employees through compensation awards and resources intended to motivate our employees and promote well-being, and (iii) continuously identify opportunities for development through regular employee input and engagement. We offer competitive compensation and benefits.

We also strive for continuous improvement in diversity and inclusivity among our employees, management, and board of directors, and seek to promote job opportunities to a diverse pool of qualified candidates. We are also committed to providing an inclusive work environment free of discrimination or harassment of any kind, supported by policies, communications, and reporting and resolution resources.

Protecting the safety, health, and well-being of our employees is also a key priority and we have implemented policies and practices to support this. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we remained focused on the health and safety of our employees by implementing appropriate safety protocols.

We work with third party independent experts in the field of laser safety to assist in meeting safety specifications. In addition, we monitor developments in the area of permissible laser exposure limits as established by International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and others. Independent experts have concluded that laser exposure to the eye resulting from use of LBS devices under normal operating conditions would be below the calculated maximum permissible exposure level set by the IEC.