Velodyne Lidar Acquires Canadian AI Software Company Bluecity

Velodyne Lidar, Inc. has acquired Bluecity, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) software company whose next-generation, lidar-based solutions solve safety, traffic and infrastructure issues. Bluecity’s executive, software development and sales teams will join Velodyne.

Velodyne and Bluecity have been partnering for many years to deliver lidar-based solutions for smart city applications.

Velodyne’s Intelligent Infrastructure Solution (IIS) combines the company’s lidar sensors and Bluecity’s AI software.

IIS delivers traffic monitoring and analytics to improve road safety and efficiency, and helps cities plan for smarter, greener transportation systems.

The solution is deployed across four continents with 74 installations, including systems rolled out domestically in California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, Nevada and Michigan and internationally in Canada, China, UAE, India, Finland, Germany and Australia.

Dr. Ted Tewksbury, CEO, Velodyne Lidar, says: “We are excited to welcome Bluecity as full members of the Velodyne team. They are an exceptionally talented group of innovators with game-changing AI and analytics software that perfectly complements our lidar sensors and Vella software. The customer response to Velodyne’s lidar-based system solutions has been incredibly positive. Customers are using our lidar and AI-powered analytics to obtain business insights and improve safety, sustainability, efficiency and transportation equity in ways that were never possible with traditional cameras or radar alone. Our acquisition of Bluecity further affirms that a system solutions approach integrating software and hardware is a major competitive advantage for Velodyne across all our end markets.”

“Bluecity is a big believer in Velodyne’s vision of being the leading provider of AI-powered autonomous vision systems,” adds Dr. Asad Lesani, Co-Founder and CEO, Bluecity. “Our experience working with Velodyne’s world-class lidar sensors has shown the power their solutions can bring in making communities safer and more efficient. Our team is thrilled to now be part of Velodyne.”

Velodyne invented real-time surround view lidar sensors, and offers a broad portfolio of breakthrough lidar technologies.