On May 6, according to Intel’s official website, Intel recently announced that it had acquired Moovit, an Israeli urban traffic data startup, for approximately US$900 million (approximately RMB 6.35 billion).
After the transaction is completed, Moovit will join Mobileye’s business but maintain independent brand operations. Moovit co-founder and CEO Nir Erez will join Mobileye as executive vice president.
In fact, as early as 2018, Intel participated in Moovit’s final $50 million Series D financing. In this acquisition, according to Israeli media disclosures, part of the acquisition fee will be used to introduce talents, that is, employees will receive 10% of the final amount as a job retention bonus.
Of course, this acquisition of Moovit will undoubtedly make up for Intel’s shortcomings in the field of autonomous driving.
As is well known in the industry, Intel acquired automotive chip manufacturer Mobileye in 2017 to enter the field of autonomous vehicle chips. It is reported that Mobileye's chips have provided EyeQ series chips for 300 models of 25 car companies, and have deployed driver assistance systems (ADAS) on nearly 60 million cars.
However, as Tesla and other car companies began to develop their own chips, and the rapid rise of automotive chips from Nvidia, Qualcomm and other companies, Mobiley's position in the industry has become less solid.
Therefore, after acquiring Moovit, Amnon Shashua said in an interview with foreign media: "The acquisition of Moovit will fill a key gap in Mobiley's progress." This "blank" in Amnon's mouth , is undoubtedly the key to autonomous driving - travel data.
On Intel's official website, Moovit is introduced as a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) company famous for its mobile applications. The mobile app combines bus transportation, bike and pedal services, ride-hailing services, carpooling and more to provide global travelers with the best multimodal transportation through bus transportation and navigation data. plan.
Currently, Moovit’s public transportation data is used in mapping applications from Google and Apple, as well as route planning for ride-hailing companies such as Uber, Lyft and Bikeshare.
According to reports, Moovit has established a leadership position in the MaaS field. In the past two years, its number of users has increased sevenfold. Amnon Shashua, senior vice president of Intel and CEO of Mobileye, said that the application has been used by It is used by a total of 800 million people in 3,100 cities in 102 countries.
Moovit co-founder and CEO Nir Erez said: “As cities become more crowded and urban travel becomes increasingly difficult, by integrating the travel habits and needs of countless Moovit users with The combination of state-of-the-art, safe, and environmentally friendly transportation provided by autonomous vehicles can make cities better places to live. We share this vision and want to be part of Mobileye."
, it is not difficult to see that Moovit’s future role in Intel’s autonomous driving landscape will be that of a travel data provider.
As mentioned above, in the face of other aggressive companies in the field of autonomous driving chips, Mobileye will no longer be just a supplier of automotive chips, but will transform into a mobile travel service provider that can provide complete solutions. , the addition of Moovit will be able to promote the success of Mobileye's transformation.
In this regard, Intel stated that as the company transforms, Intel is investing in and expanding market opportunities supported by data services, including the rapidly growing ADAS, operational data and mobility service markets, and is expected to In 2030, the combined value of these markets will exceed US$230 billion.
At the same time, Amnon believes that Intel’s decision to acquire Moovit at this time was entirely due to technical considerations. By 2022, Intel will take the lead in deploying a small number of Robotaxi in countries such as Israel, France, and South Korea. If passengers want to make an appointment, they can directly call a taxi in the Moovit mobile APP.
In fact, according to sources quoted by the media, negotiations for Intel to acquire Moovit began around March this year, and the two companies reached an acquisition agreement after 40 days of online negotiations.
At the same time, the above-mentioned sources also said that since March this year, the rapid spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in overseas regions has made Moovit uneasy about its business prospects. Although Moovit's cash reserves were enough to sustain the company for a year, as the epidemic situation continued to intensify, the company's executives decided to sell the company directly to Intel.
Faced with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, Amnon said: "For Intel, the company has a well-organized development plan, and the epidemic should not be a stumbling block on Intel's path forward. On the contrary, Intel is looking for opportunities in crises."
This article is from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.