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what it is
AEye sells lidar sensors for cars, trucks, roads, and robots in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific.
how it gets paid
Last year Aeye made $202K in revenue. vehicle autonomy and ADAS lidar was the main engine at $86K, or 43% of sales.
what just happened
$136K of quarterly revenue grew 172% vs. prior year, but the quarter still lost money.
At a glance
C+ balance sheet — struggling to keep the lights on
-$4.89 fy2024 eps est
$0M fy2024 rev est
n/a operating margin
1.6 beta
xvary composite: 36/100 — weak
What they do
AEye sells lidar sensors for cars, trucks, roads, and robots in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific.
The edge is software-defined lidar, which means the sensor can be tuned after shipping. That matters when you need one platform for highways, toll roads, and robots. But the hard number is still 45 employees. That is a tiny crew for a global sales map.
How they make money
$202K
annual revenue
vehicle autonomy and ADAS lidar
$86K
smart infrastructure systems
$44K
apollo vehicle programs
$30K
robotic vision applications
$22K
other services and development
$20K
The products that matter
ultra-long-range sensor
STRATOS lidar
1.5 kilometers of stated range
Its headline spec is detecting objects up to 1.5 kilometers away, which targets highway and autonomous trucking use cases where reaction time matters more than city-speed convenience.
long-range pitch
ai software + hardware stack
Optus
built to support the 16-customer pipeline
The software wrapper matters because $202K of total annual revenue is not enough to fund a hardware-only strategy. If AEye sells anything at scale, management wants software to be part of the package.
margin ambition
Key numbers
$202K
annual sales
That is the whole business in one year. It is smaller than the annual payroll of many single office teams.
17,736.6%
operating margin
This means the company lost about $178 for every $1 of revenue.
1.6
beta
A 1.6 beta means a 10% market move can turn into a 16% swing here.
$0M
long debt
No long-term debt helps, but it does not fix the fact that sales are still tiny.
Financial health
C+
strength
- balance sheet grade C+ — weak — may struggle to fund operations
- risk rank 4 — safer than 20% of stocks
- price stability 5 / 100
- long-term debt $0M (1% of capital)
C+ — below average. watch for debt servicing and cash burn.
Total return vs. market
Return history isn't available for LIDR right now.
source: institutional data · return history unavailable
What just happened
missed estimates
$136K of quarterly revenue grew 172% vs. prior year, but the quarter still lost money.
EDGAR shows $136K in revenue and EPS of -$1.61. Gross margin was -n/a, so more sales helped, but the cost structure still ate the quarter.
$0.1M
revenue
-$1.61
eps
n/a
gross margin
the number that mattered
Gross margin at -n/a mattered most because every $100 of sales left $125.70 in gross loss before overhead.
source: company earnings report, 2026
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What could go wrong
The top risk is commercializing lidar before the cash runway closes.
med
The customer list never turns into revenue
AEye says it has 16 active customers, but the income statement still showed only $202K of revenue last year. That is the quiet part loud.
If those customers stay in pilot mode, the commercial story remains a slide deck while the cash balance keeps shrinking.
med
Cash burn forces dilution
Management projected $30M–$35M of annual burn. Against $86.5M in cash, that gives you roughly 2.5–2.9 years of runway before new capital becomes hard to avoid.
For a $72M market cap company, raising money can help the balance sheet while hurting existing shareholders at the same time.
med
Unit economics are still upside down
Gross margin was -n/a. In plain English: the company lost money before covering overhead, sales, or R&D.
Even if revenue starts growing, margins need to improve fast or scale just means losing money on a larger base.
At the midpoint burn of $32.5M, the current $86.5M cash balance implies about 2.7 years of runway — and that assumes the $202K revenue base finally stops being a rounding error.
source: institutional data · regulatory filings · risk analysis
Pay attention to
commercial proof
Revenue per customer
Sixteen active customers sounds promising. $202K of total annual revenue says otherwise. This gap is the whole story.
cash runway
Burn versus $86.5M cash
Management guided to $30M–$35M annual burn. If that number drifts higher, the financing clock starts ticking louder.
next catalyst
Q1 2026 earnings report
This is the next clean checkpoint for whether the promised 2026 ramp starts showing up in reported numbers.
margin trend
Gross margin improvement from -n/a
Negative gross margin is survivable in a prototype phase. It is a problem if management starts calling it scale.
Analyst rankings
risk profile
below average
risk rank 4 — more volatile than most — brace for bigger swings.
chart momentum
average
momentum rank 3 — the stock is moving with the broader market, no unusual signal.
source: institutional data
Institutional activity
institutional ownership data for LIDR is being compiled.
source: institutional data
Price targets
3-5 year target range
n/a
n/a
$2
current price
n/a
target midpoint · n/a from current
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