Korean lidar venture SOSLab eyes Kosdaq debut in May

South Korean light detection and ranging (lidar) startup SOSLab aims to debut on the junior bourse Kosdaq in May, according to banking sources on Sunday.

The company plans to raise up to 18 billion won ($13 million) by selling 2 million new shares. Given the price range of 7,500 won-9,000 won, the market cap is expected to be between 131.5 billion won and 157.8 billion won.

With Korea Investment & Securities Co. as the lead manager, SOS Lab will gauge institutional investors’ demand for the stocks between April 30 and May 8 to determine the public offering price. The startup plans to hold bookbuilding for retail investors May 13 and 14.

Lidar is a remote sensing method to determine ranges by targeting an object with a laser. Founded in 2016, SOSLab produces lidar for autonomous driving, industrial robots and factory automation.  

The company developed 2D lidar for industrial robots and automation in 2018 and 3D mobility lidar for self-driving in 2022. It provides lidar to domestic chip equipment producers and global automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), car parts makers and tech firms.

The startup’s revenue jumped from 950 million in 2020 to 1.2 billion won in 2021, 2.3 billion won in 2022 and 4.1 billion won last year. The company hasn’t turned a profit yet, posting an operating loss of 8.3 billion won last year.

Several autonomous driving tech ventures have already gone public and more aim for initial public offerings in Korea this year.

Digital twin platform operator E8ight, pronounced as e-eight, went public on the Kosdaq in February. SWM, an unmanned driving platform creator, and Luritech, a developer of an autonomous vehicle camera, are waiting for preliminary review approvals for listing.
  
Seoul Robotics, a 3D software developer for autonomous vehicles, and Stradvision, an artificial intelligence-powered image sensor tech firm, have selected their IPO lead managers.

Among other startups eyeing public market debuts are Clobot, an autonomous service robot developer, Infiniq, an AI platform operator for self-driving, and Bitsensing, an imaging radar system developer.  

Write to Seok-Cheol Choi at dolsoi@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.