Velodyne Lidar site lands buyer
SAN JOSE >> A big East Coast investor has bought a complex that serves as the San Jose headquarters of a company that has created and supplies a radar-like and laser-based technology called lidar.
W.P. Carey, a real estate investment firm that holds properties in 25 countries, bought the Velodyne Lidar headquarters complex in south San Jose. The East Coast company already owns 6.23 million square feet of commercial real estate space in California.
Laser Landlord CA, an affiliate of W.P. Carey, bought the Velodyne headquarters facility at 5521 Hellyer Ave, which totals about 203,800 square feet.
New York City-based W.P. Carey paid $51.4 million for the 11.9-acre site in an all-cash deal, according to documents filed May 14 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.
Hellyer-DMHall Properties, an affiliate controlled by David Hall, founder of Velodyne Lidar, sold the property for what appears to be a considerable profit. In 2016, the David Hall affiliate paid $23.4 million for the property, according to public records.
“The mission-critical asset features a large manufacturing floor and houses substantially all of the company’s R&D, quality control, and engineering functions, as well as serving as its headquarters,” W.P. Carey said of the site at Hellyer Avenue and Fontanoso Way.
Hall invented three-dimensional real-time lidar in 2005, according to the Velodyne Lidar website. Lidar is based on the principle of radar but emits pulses of laser light rather than microwaves to scan surroundings.
In 2010, Google deployed Velodyne’s lidar technology for use in self-driving vehicles that the search giant tested on Bay Area streets. Over the years, Caterpillar, Ford Motor and Mercedes Benz have deployed Velodyne Lidar’s technology in various ways.
But it’s also become clear that fully autonomous vehicles won’t necessarily appear en masse immediately. As a result, Velodyne Lidar and other companies are focusing on providing lidar for endeavors in addition to autonomous vehicles. Velodyne Lidar has been selling its lidar technology for use in driver-assistance systems, industrial robots and autonomous vehicles.
Although the company’s founder no longer owns the firm’s headquarters, the tech company is slated to be a tenant in the San Jose property for a number of years, according to documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In 2017, Velodyne Lidar signed a five-year lease for the Hellyer campus. In 2019, the company agreed to a five-year extension, which would appear to take the rental agreement into 2027.
Over the 12 months ended in March, Velodyne Lidar produced revenue of $96.1 million and lost $167.3 million, according to the Yahoo Finance site. At the end of March, Velodyne Lidar had $383.1 million in cash.
“When you look at where we were one year ago at this time, we are seeing significant growth in the robotics and industrial segment, which is one of the lidar segments closer to commercialization,” Anand Gopalan, Velodyne Lidar’s chief executive officer, said on May 10 during a conference call with analysts to discuss financial results.