Israeli media is reporting that Intel have bought Mobileye for between $14 and $15 billion.
At $15 billion it marks the biggest deal ever made in Israeli high tech, with the news driving Mobileye stock up 30% to $69 in pre-market trading.
Mobileye is a self-driving car company based in Jerusalem. The company recently partnered with Intel and BMW in 2016 aiming to put a fleet of 40 self driving cars onto the roads by the second half of 2017.
The deal has not yet been confirmed by either company but an official announcement is expected to be made in the next few hours.
Recently Intel has been expanding into emerging tech markets such as IoT and connected objects. In 2016 Intel made 9 acquisitions totaling at least $1 billion, with the acquisitions including Voke, a VR streaming company, and MAVinci GmbH a company which designs unmanned drones.
The chip giant has also recently gone big in the connected and autonomous car space, with the rumoured Mobileye buyout set to bolster its growing portfolio. In January of this year, Intel announced that it would be buying a 15% stake in HERE, an embedded navigation solutions provider.
In addition to the stake acquisition, the two companies also agreed to collaborate on research and development in the areas of highly scalable proof-of-concept architecture for real time updates of high definition (HD) maps for automated driving.
Mobileye was founded in 1999 by CTO Amnon Shashua, and CEO Ziv Aviram, with the aim of reducing road fatalities. The company develops driver assistance systems and is developing technology for automated cars.
This would also mark the largest acquisition of an Israeli company by a foreign firm.
UPDATE:
Intel and Mobileye have officiaily confirmed that the deal will go ahead.
Intel will acquire Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, for approximately $15.3 billion.
Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO, said: “This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholders, the automotive industry and consumers.”
“Intel provides critical foundational technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car’s path and making real-time driving decisions. Mobileye brings the industry’s best automotive-grade computer vision and strong momentum with automakers and suppliers. Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers.”
Mr. Ziv Aviram, Mobileye Co-Founder, President and CEO, said: “We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers.”
“By pooling together our infrastructure and resources, we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware, data centers and high-performance computing platforms.”
