Mobileye made its name and money by supplying automakers with millions of computer vision chips designed to support vehicle safety features and advanced driver-assistance systems. The publicly traded subsidiary of Intel has since expanded its self-driving efforts through its chips and software.
Now, co-founder and president Amnon Shashua is moving the company into what he calls Mobileye 3.0. That means robotics and big acquisitions.
The Israeli company announced Tuesday during CES in Las Vegas that it has reached a deal to acquire Mentee Robotics, a startup co-founded by Shashua, for $900 million in 2022. Under the agreement, Mobileye will acquire Mentee Robotics for approximately $612 million in cash and up to 26.2 million shares of common stock. Shashua, Mentee’s chairman, co-founder and majority shareholder, has recused himself from consideration and approval by Mobileye’s board of directors, the company said.
The transaction has been approved by Mobileye’s board of directors and its largest shareholder, Intel, and is expected to close in the first quarter. The transaction is expected to slightly increase Mobileye’s 2026 operating expenses by a low-single-digit percentage.
“Today is a new chapter in robotics and automotive AI and the beginning of Mobileye 3.0,” Shashua said on Tuesday. “Combining Mentee’s breakthrough work in humanoid robotics with Mobileye’s expertise in automotive autonomy and proven ability to commercialize advanced AI gives us a unique opportunity to lead the evolution of physical AI across robotics and autonomous vehicles on a global scale.”
Mentee Robotics, which develops humanoid robots, will continue as an independent division within Mobileye. Of course, since Mr. Shashua is the brainchild and shareholder of both companies, there is no doubt that there will be a lot of overlap.
The upside for Mobileye isn’t entirely clear, except that everyone seems to be jumping into the humanoid robot game these days. Mobileye officially said the acquisition is “a decisive step towards general physical artificial intelligence and expands the scope of our business.” Specifically, systems designed to understand context and intent, and to behave naturally with humans and the physical world.
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In other words, Mobileye and Shashua seem to want to go beyond the technology used to enable vehicles to move around the world and apply it to humanoid robots as well. In its announcement, the company noted that its current auto revenue pipeline (driven by advanced vehicle self-driving features and core advanced driver assistance technologies) is $24.5 billion over the next eight years, suggesting it has the capital to get there. The company said pipeline numbers are up more than 40% compared to January 2023.
Of course, developing a humanoid robot that could eventually go into production would be an expensive undertaking. Mentee has the potential to benefit significantly by being able to leverage Mobileye’s resources, including advanced AI training infrastructure (aka compute).
News of the acquisition comes a day after Mobileye announced new customer wins for next-generation chips developed for hands-off advanced driver assistance systems. The company announced Monday that “top 10 automakers” have signed agreements to purchase 9 million of its EyeQ6H-based surround ADAS systems. Volkswagen Group also announced in March that it would adopt the chip. Mobileye currently estimates that more than 19 million EyeQ6H-based surround systems will be delivered in the future.
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