Velodyne Lidar’s Drew Hamer Named Finalist in Bay Area CFO of the Year Awards
3.6.2021 18:15:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Velodyne Lidar, Inc. (Nasdaq: VLDR, VLDRW) today announced Chief Financial Officer Drew Hamer has been named a finalist in the Bay Area CFO of the Year Awards.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210603005166/en/
Velodyne Lidar Chief Financial Officer Drew Hamer has been named a finalist in the Bay Area CFO of the Year Awards. Hamer was recognized for his central role in Velodyne’s raising $70 million from strategic investors, leading the company through the COVID-19 economic downturn with a combination of loans and asset sales, and guiding the company through a SPAC merger that raised $419 million which fully capitalized its balance sheet. Velodyne is the world’s first public pure-play lidar company. (Photo: Velodyne Lidar)
Hamer was recognized for his central role in Velodyne’s raising $70 million from strategic investors, leading the company through the COVID-19 economic downturn with a combination of loans and asset sales, and guiding the company through a SPAC merger that raised $419 million which fully capitalized its balance sheet. Velodyne is the world’s first public pure-play lidar company.
As a strategic leader, Hamer built Velodyne’s financial processes, systems, policies and corporate governance to support the company’s continued growth. Velodyne, the global leader in lidar, is known for its broad portfolio of breakthrough lidar technologies that meets the needs of a wide range of industries. Velodyne sensor and software solutions transform lives by advancing safe mobility and smart communities.
The Bay Area CFO of the Year Awards are presented by Larkin Street Youth Services, in partnership with the San Francisco Business Times. The organization selects finalists based on its proprietary formula of quantitative, qualitative and unique positive impacts CFOs contribute to their organizations. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in San Francisco on September 23, 2021.
“Drew is a valued colleague whose expertise and dedication have contributed mightily to Velodyne’s growth,” said Anand Gopalan, Chief Executive Officer, Velodyne Lidar. “Drew’s track record of exceptional performance in business and innovation in his field make him an outstanding choice as a CFO of the Year Award finalist.”
“It is an honor to be named a finalist for the Bay Area CFO of the Year Award in the Public Company category,” said Hamer. “There are many talented CFOs in the Bay Area and I congratulate the other award finalists. The last year of helping Velodyne become and then manage as a public company presented many challenges and opportunities. It was a privilege to be part of the executive and financial teams that worked enormously hard to make Velodyne a successful, growing public company.”
As Velodyne’s CFO, Hamer works with the leadership team on financial strategy and leads the finance organization with forecasting, budgeting and accounting. He is a seasoned finance executive with over 25 years of financial leadership experience at public and pre-public technology companies. Before joining Velodyne, Hamer worked at companies including ON24, Keynote Systems, KnowNow, Intraspect Software, Excite@Home and Sybase. Hamer has managed investor relations, implemented financial efficiencies, raised capital and oversaw the expansion of financial and business operations throughout the world, both organically and through acquisitions.
About Velodyne Lidar
Velodyne Lidar (Nasdaq: VLDR, VLDRW) ushered in a new era of autonomous technology with the invention of real-time surround view lidar sensors. Velodyne, the global leader in lidar, is known for its broad portfolio of breakthrough lidar technologies. Velodyne’s revolutionary sensor and software solutions provide flexibility, quality and performance to meet the needs of a wide range of industries, including autonomous vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), smart cities and security. Through continuous innovation, Velodyne strives to transform lives and communities by advancing safer mobility for all. For more information, visit www.velodynelidar.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 including, without limitation, all statements other than historical fact and include, without limitation, statements regarding Velodyne’s target markets, new products, development efforts, competition. When used in this press release, the words "estimates," "projected," "expects," "anticipates," "forecasts," "plans," "intends," "believes," "seeks," "may," "will," “can,” "should," "future," "propose" and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside Velodyne's control, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Important factors, among others, that may affect actual results or outcomes include uncertainties regarding government regulation and adoption of lidar, the uncertain impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Velodyne's and its customers' businesses; Velodyne's ability to manage growth; Velodyne's ability to execute its business plan; uncertainties related to the ability of Velodyne's customers to commercialize their products and the ultimate market acceptance of these products; the rate and degree of market acceptance of Velodyne's products; the success of other competing lidar and sensor-related products and services that exist or may become available; uncertainties related to Velodyne's current litigation and potential litigation involving Velodyne or the validity or enforceability of Velodyne's intellectual property; and general economic and market conditions impacting demand for Velodyne's products and services. Velodyne undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210603005166/en/
Contact information
Velodyne Investor Relations
InvestorRelations@velodyne.com
Media
Codeword
Liv Allen
velodyne@codeword.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
SLB Announces Date for Second-Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call26.5.2026 20:00:00 EEST | Press release
SLB (NYSE: SLB) will hold a conference call on July 24, 2026, to discuss the results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2026. The conference call is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern time and a press release regarding the results will be issued at 7:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. To access the conference call, listeners should contact the Conference Call Operator at +1 (800) 715-9871 within North America or +1 (646) 307-1963 outside of North America approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call and the access code is 3440360. A webcast of the conference call will be broadcast simultaneously at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/157027565 on a listen-only basis. Listeners should log in 15 minutes prior to the start of the call to test their browsers and register for the webcast. Following the end of the conference call, a replay will be available at www.slb.com/irwebcast until July 31, 2026, and can be accessed by dialing +1 (800) 770-2030 within North America or +1
Alipay Launches Next-Generation AI Payment Infrastructure, Debuts AI Wallet and Token Pay to Power Agentic Economy26.5.2026 18:20:00 EEST | Press release
Alipay today introduced its full-stack AI payment solution to partners across industries, ranging from AI companies to traditional retailers, and debuted two new services — the world’s first AI Wallet and Token Pay — to support the agentic economy’s rapid growth. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260526337824/en/ Alipay Unveils Next-generation AI Payment Infrastructure This launch extends Alipay's next-generation AI payment infrastructure, building on its consumer-facing product Alipay AI Pay and its business-facing AI payment processing product. “While the essence of commerce remains unchanged in the age of AI, the emergence of AI agents is reshaping everything. Drawing on 22 years of technological expertise and commercial know-how, Alipay is building a new generation of AI payment services to accelerate the growth of the agentic commerce ecosystem,” said Cyril Han, CEO of Ant Group. AI Wallet: Giving Users Vis
Daiichi Sankyo Europe Reaffirms Commitment to Patient-Centred Care with Extensive Data Showcase at EAS Congress 202626.5.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Daiichi Sankyo Europe (DSE) is pleased to announce its extensive scientific presence at the European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) Congress 2026. The presentation of 15 abstracts, comprising both clinical trial analyses and real-world evidence, underscores the company's sustained investment in cardiovascular health and its mission to care for every heartbeat. The 15-abstract showcase provides a comprehensive look at the role of bempedoic acid in lipid management. This includes post-hoc analyses in collaboration with Esperion Therapeutics from the Phase 3 CLEAR Outcomes trial exploring its impact on stroke and venous thromboembolism (VTE) incidence.5,6 There are also real-world findings from the MILOS registry, including a dedicated sub-analysis investigating the effectiveness of bempedoic acid across various background therapies.1,2,3,4 Results reinforce consistent effectiveness and safety profile of bempedoic acid across various EU countries and regardless of patients’ existing treatm
OpenRouter Raises $113 Million CapitalG-led Series B as Weekly Volume Explodes to 25T Tokens26.5.2026 16:15:00 EEST | Press release
OpenRouter, the AI model exchange, today announced a $113 million Series B led by Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG, with participation from investors including NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), ServiceNow Ventures, MongoDB Ventures, Snowflake Ventures, Databricks Ventures, alongside existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. OpenRouter’s volume has surged to 25 trillion tokens per week (100 trillion tokens per month), representing a 5X increase from the 5 trillion tokens processed per week just six months ago. The explosion in token demand illustrates how quickly enterprises are deploying agents and scaling AI across multiple models and providers. OpenRouter’s infrastructure manages and optimizes inference and provides access to 400+ models across leading AI providers, including Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, xAI, and DeepSeek, among others. The platform is used by over 8 million global users, including AI-native startups and large enterprises,
Xsolla Expands Its Community Management Tools for Creators, Community Leaders, and Resellers26.5.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Xsolla, a leading global video game commerce company, today announced three simultaneous expansions of its community management tools and products. As the creator economy continues to reshape how games are discovered and the industry accelerates its shift toward direct-to-consumer commerce, Xsolla is building on its community management tools for creators, community leaders, and emerging markets, and will showcase them at TwitchCon Rotterdam later this month. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260526596720/en/ Graphic: Xsolla The games industry has never had a shortage of people who drive player acquisition, loyalty, and commerce; it's had a shortage of infrastructure that recognizes them. Creators stream it. Community leaders build a culture around it. Local resellers get it into the hands of players in markets traditional channels can't reach. Each operates at the center of how games are discovered, adopted, an
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom
