BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today Blackmore Sensors and Analytics, Inc., the BMW i Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures-backed pioneers behind the world’s first Doppler lidar for automotive applications, announced the appointment of Jeff Davison as chief financial officer.
Davison’s specialty is helping high growth technology companies build revenue and expand operations. His experience with rapidly expanding SaaS and software companies complements the lidar, radar, automotive and defense industry expertise already in place across Blackmore's executive team.
Davison is best known for his remarkable 12-year tenure with RightNow, a customer service software company that went through a successful IPO and $1.8 billion acquisition by Oracle. He served as the Bozeman, Mont.-based company’s CFO, as well as VP Finance, and VP worldwide sales operations. He helped RightNow grow its business globally, from startup to over $200 million in revenue with 1,100 employees, and was instrumental in completing four acquisitions and their subsequent integrations.
Prior to joining Blackmore, Davison was CFO for Mitek (NASDAQ: MITK), an identity verification and mobile capture solutions provider, where he completed two international acquisitions and oversaw the company’s growth from $45 million to $64 million, a 40 percent increase, in just over a year.
Blackmore successfully parlayed more than a decade of experience refining frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar with the Department of Defense to address the automotive industry’s rigorous requirements. As a result, Blackmore is shipping the world’s first Doppler lidar system, which makes autonomous vehicles smarter and safer than those with conventional lidar, because it instantly understands the real time velocity of objects at long distances. Blackmore is the only company that provides the highly precise data needed to inform safe autonomous vehicles while also having a clear path to meet OEMs’ performance, reliability and pricing requirements.
On the heels of Blackmore’s $18 million Series B funding earlier this year, Davison joins the company as it continues to expand partnerships with automotive OEMs, tier one suppliers and automotive startups based around the world. Blackmore’s ability to support these customers’ aggressive timelines for integration, deployment and production scalability will drive strong demand for its highly precise lidar systems across the automotive market, as well as in airborne and geospatial applications.
“With Jeff on board, we will further build Blackmore’s business and its value as we solve the technical and manufacturing challenges facing lidar for autonomous vehicles,” said Dr. Randy Reibel, CEO and co-founder of Blackmore. “Our Doppler lidar systems are moving toward production at scale and Jeff’s guidance will ensure we’re well-positioned to support high volume adoption across markets.”
Earlier in his career, Davison spent three years with Netsuite as SVP of Sales Success, leading a team of more than 600 employees prior to Oracle’s acquisition of the company for over $9 billion in 2016. Mr. Davison also served as the CFO of Outbrain in New York City. He holds a BS with an emphasis in Accounting from Montana State University-Bozeman and is a CPA.
About Blackmore Sensors and Analytics, Inc.
Blackmore is pioneering the development of compact and robust Doppler lidar sensors, and supporting analytic tools and software, for a variety of rigorous, mission critical automotive, industrial and military environments. Where cost and performance specifications limit more traditional sensors, Blackmore's technology brings the advanced tool sets of modern radar into the optical domain, enabling a new era of unprecedented lidar system performance. Blackmore is based in Bozeman, Montana. Please click here for images and video, and for more information visit: www.blackmorelidar.com.
