The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2012
🌱
2012
Founded in Silicon Valley
Louay Eldada's startup promises cheap solid-state lidar for self-driving cars — years before the hype peaks.
Bloomberg
2021
📈
2021
The peak: a ~$1.4B SPAC debut$1.4B
A SPAC merger takes the lidar pioneer public after about $160M of private funding — with revenue still barely there.
Bloomberg
2020–22
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2020–22
Employees called the gap before Wall Street did: Glassdoor reviews described flagship sensors that didn't perform as promised and leadership that couldn't settle on a direction. Through 2022, insiders narrated waves of exits — writing the company's obituary months before the filing.
2022
2022
Lidar craters
The sector's stocks collapse as autonomy timelines slip; Quanergy's revenue stays thin and the NYSE delists it.
Bloomberg
Dec 2022
🪦
Dec 2022
Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Delisted and nearly out of cash, it files for bankruptcy to hunt for a buyer, its equity roughly 99% gone from the debut.
Bloomberg
2023
2023
Sold out of bankruptcy
The assets find a buyer and the lidar line lives on under new private ownership.
Court filing
$1.39Bof peak value erased · 10 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Quanergy Systems was a lidar developer for automotive and security uses that went public via SPAC in early 2021 at roughly a $1.4B valuation. As the lidar sector cratered and revenue stayed thin, its shares collapsed, it was delisted from the NYSE, and it filed for Chapter 11 in December 2022.
Employees had flagged the gap between pitch and product years earlier: reviews described flagship sensors that didn't perform as promised and disorganized leadership that couldn't settle on a direction.
