So I've been digging into the LiDAR space lately, and honestly, it's one of the more underrated opportunities in the automotive supply chain right now. Most people are fixated on EVs, but the real money might be in the sensor tech that powers autonomous driving and driver assistance systems.

Back in 2023, Goldman Sachs put out some solid analysis on this exact thesis. Their team was modeling LiDAR adoption growing 3x over a decade, which would make it one of the fastest-growing segments in the EV supply chain. That's the kind of growth trajectory that gets institutional attention. When you're looking for the best LiDAR company to invest in, you need to understand what separates the winners from the rest.

Hesai Group caught my attention first. They're a Shanghai-based company that had just gone public on NASDAQ around that time, raising $190 million in what was the largest Chinese IPO in the US since 2021. What's interesting is their market position - they had over 100,000 units shipped by end of 2022 and held about 60% market share in the autonomous mobility space. Their 4Q22 numbers showed quarterly revenue of $59.3 million with LiDAR deliveries jumping 739% year-over-year to 47,515 units. That kind of unit growth is hard to ignore.

The Goldman analysts highlighted three things that made Hesai stand out as potentially the best LiDAR company to invest in at that moment: their proprietary ASIC technology that reduces power consumption and manufacturing costs, their vertically integrated Shanghai manufacturing facility, and the massive domestic Chinese market where ADAS adoption was expected to explode from 8% to 84% penetration over the 2021-2030 period. That's a tailwind that doesn't exist for most Western competitors.

Then there's Innoviz Technologies. They're the Israeli-founded company designing and manufacturing solid-state LiDAR sensors with integrated software. They had partnerships with BMW and Volkswagen, which gave them credibility, but their 2023 outlook was messier. Q4 2022 revenue came in at $1.58 million, missing expectations, and their 2023 guidance of $12-15 million fell well short of what analysts had been modeling. Still, their order book was solid and they had design wins locked in with major OEMs.

Both companies represented what Goldman saw as compelling opportunities in the best LiDAR company to invest in category, though with different risk profiles. Hesai was the growth story with scale already happening. Innoviz was more of a turnaround play betting on OEM production ramps materializing.

The broader point here is that LiDAR adoption is structural, not cyclical. As autonomous driving and ADAS systems become standard rather than premium features, the sensor companies supplying this tech are going to be critical infrastructure plays. Whether you're looking at Hesai, Innoviz, or evaluating which is truly the best LiDAR company to invest in for your portfolio, the sector fundamentals point to significant runway ahead. The key is picking the right company execution-wise, which is where deep due diligence on manufacturing capability, OEM relationships, and technology differentiation really matters.