Mobileye CEO and founder Prof Amnon Shashua speaking at CES 2019 in Las Vegas. Image: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation
The nearly $17bn valuation of Mobileye is far below Intel’s earlier expectations for the IPO.
Mobileye, the self-driving car unit of chip giant Intel, has braved a volatile stock market and gone public in the US.
The company raised $861m in its IPO yesterday (26 October). It offered 41m shares at a price of $21 each, valuing the company at nearly $17bn.
While this is higher than the $15.3bn Intel spent to acquire Mobileye in 2017, it is far below the $50bn valuation Intel had initially hoped to achieve with the IPO.
Intel first announced its intention to float Mobileye last December, with the chip giant planning to remain the majority owner and the two companies becoming “strategic partners” working on tech developments in the auto sector.
Mobileye is focused on advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and self-driving tech. It was founded more than two decades ago in Israel by Prof Amnon Shashua, who developed his research into computer vision technology.
Developing a range of autonomous mobility technologies, Mobileye has shipped millions of EyeQ system-on-a-chips and scaled autonomous vehicle test programmes in cities around the world.
Last year, it unveiled a self-driving robotaxi and secured 41 new ADAS deals with more than 30 automakers. It also signed deals for mobility-as-a-service programmes starting in 2023.
The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 before it was acquired by Intel in 2017. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said last year that Mobileye had experienced substantial revenue growth since the acquisition, with record revenue in the third quarter of 2021.
Intel said a “significant portion” of the net proceeds from the IPO will be used for “repayment of a note” to Intel. The remaining amount will be used as working capital for Mobileye as well as general corporate purposes.
Gelsinger defended Mobileye’s decision to go through with the IPO despite the economic climate. “It is a move to potentially move them into the market. It’s not a capital raise,” he told the WSJ Tech Live conference earlier this week.
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