Mighty AI

Blackmore Sensors and Analytics traced its technology origins to Bridger Photonics, a Bozeman, Montana R&D firm that had developed precision lidar for laser cutting/welding and military surveillance applications. Blackmore was formally incorporated in Delaware in early 2016 to commercialize a coherent, frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) lidar — sometimes called Doppler lidar — for the autonomous vehicle market. The company was led by CEO Randy Reibel (PhD in Physics, Montana State University) and CTO Stephen Crouch, who together built a lidar approach that could simultaneously capture range and instantaneous velocity for every point in a scene, offering advantages in range, immunity to sun/lidar-on-lidar interference, and reduced downstream computation compared to conventional time-of-flight lidar used by competitors such as Velodyne and Quanergy.

Blackmore raised a $3.5 million Series A round (announced December 2016; per its SEC Form D, roughly $3.2 million was actually sold, with a first sale date of November 15, 2016), led by Bozeman-based venture firm Next Frontier Capital (whose founder, Richard Harjes, joined Blackmore's board) with participation from Millennium Technology Value Partners; a New York-based individual, Samuel L. Schwerin, also held a board seat. Blackmore went on to raise additional capital — commonly reported as an approximately $18 million Series B — led by BMW i Ventures, with participation from Toyota AI Ventures and Next Frontier Capital, bringing total disclosed funding to roughly $21.5 million prior to acquisition. No source reviewed for this research confirms Greylock Partners as an investor in Blackmore directly (see greylock_relationship note); Greylock's documented tie to this corporate family is its investment in and board seat (via partner Reid Hoffman) at acquirer Aurora Innovation.

On May 23, 2019, Aurora Innovation — the self-driving trucking and robotaxi company founded in 2017 by Chris Urmson, Sterling Anderson, and Drew Bagnell — announced it had agreed to acquire Blackmore, shortly after Aurora closed a $530 million round led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Amazon and T. Rowe Price. The acquisition closed on August 26, 2019, with Aurora acquiring 100% of Blackmore's voting interests. Per Aurora's SEC S-4 registration statement (filed in connection with its 2021 SPAC merger with Reinvent Technology Partners Y), the acquisition-date fair value of consideration was approximately $74.7 million, comprising about $25.6 million in cash, $47.1 million in Aurora stock, and roughly $2.0 million of assumed third-party-expense liabilities; Aurora incurred about $1.7 million in transaction costs. The sole identifiable intangible asset recognized was in-process R&D (IPR&D). Aurora also assumed Blackmore's 2016 Equity Incentive Plan, converting outstanding Blackmore options into rights over up to 581,730 shares of Aurora common stock.

Business model

Hardware/sensor manufacturer selling FMCW lidar sensors and licensing lidar technology to automotive OEMs, tier-1 suppliers, and autonomous vehicle developers.

Hardware sales and technology licensing/partnership agreements with automotive manufacturers and suppliers (pre-acquisition); post-acquisition, technology was internalized into Aurora's self-driving stack rather than sold commercially.