Cepton announces closing of $100 million investment from Koito Manufacturing

Cepton announced the completion of its previously announced $100 million investment from its long-term automotive Tier 1 partner and current shareholder, Koito Manufacturing.

The Investment, in the form of convertible preferred stock, was approved at a special meeting of Cepton stockholders on Jan. 11 and is convertible, beginning on the first anniversary of the issue date, into shares of Cepton’s common stock at an initial conversion price of $2.585 per share.

“We’re happy to announce the closing of the preferred stock investment as we deepen our partnership with Koito,” said Jun Pei, Cepton’s co-founder and CEO. “We plan to deploy the additional capital to help fund our next stage of growth, continue series production execution, and expand our collaboration efforts towards winning additional automotive OEM programs.”

“We’re excited to have completed our third investment in Cepton, which solidifies our commitment to lidar and increasing automotive safety for drivers worldwide,” said Michiaki Kato, Koito’s president. “This is an important year for us as we work towards commercialization and scale manufacturing of our lidar products. We have a strong track record with Cepton as a partner and look forward to achieving our mutual goal of becoming the leader within lidar.”

Additional details regarding the close of the Investment will be included in a Form 8-K to be filed by Cepton with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Advisors

ICR Capital LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to Cepton and O’Melveny & Myers served as legal counsel to Cepton. SMBC Nikko served as exclusive financial advisor to Koito and Davis Polk & Wardwell and Nishimura & Asahi served as legal counsel to Koito.