SAN JOSE, CALIF. -- Cepton, Inc. (“Cepton” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: CPTN), a Silicon Valley innovator and leader in high-performance lidar solutions for automotive and smart infrastructure applications, has announced today that it has signed a significant Engineering Services Agreement (the “Agreement”) with its long-term automotive Tier 1 partner and current shareholder, KOITO MANUFACTURING CO., LTD. (“Koito”) (TSE: 7276) on May 9, 2024.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Koito will provide Cepton with a total of $10 million in engineering services fee for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, to support a major global OEM program that Cepton and Koito have recently secured.

The Agreement will fuel Cepton’s customer-specific product development and program execution efforts for its near-range lidar, which is planned to be deployed in the above-mentioned OEM program as well as by multiple other OEM customers to enable Level 4 autonomous driving capabilities, for both on-road and off-road use cases.

“This engagement with Koito comes at a crucial juncture as Cepton prepares to fulfill our new OEM program,” said Dr. Jun Pei, CEO and Co-founder of Cepton. “We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Koito to advance scalable lidar adoption for safety-critical automotive use cases. This exemplifies Cepton and Koito’s shared vision of paving the way to safely deployed autonomy.”

Mr. Michiaki Kato, President of Koito, says: “The Agreement not only reaffirms Koito’s confidence in Cepton’s innovative lidar solutions but also underscores Koito's unwavering commitment to industrializing cutting-edge technologies that are poised to reshape the future of mobility, aligning with our vision of ‘lighting the way for our sustainable future’.”