Transaction Insights:
Intel acquires Moovit for $900m (confirmed on May, 4 2020). Intel previously led Moovit's Series D funding round of $50m in 2018, in which all Moovit’s earlier investors participated, including Sequoia Capital, BMW iVentures, NGP, Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures among many others. Intel announced therefore an actual purchase price of $840m for Moovit's shares, after deduction of the current value of its existing stake in the company.
Moovit is an Israeli startup specializing in urban mobility platforms, traffic pattern analysis, public transport recommendations, and traffic data management. Moovit's app is viral with ca. 800m users, and targeting to reach 1 bn users in 2021 before the pandemic outbreak.
This transaction is a complementary fit to Mobileye, acquired by Intel for a mere $15.3bn in 2017. Indeed, the purpose is to create a powerful and synergetical combination of Mobileye's driver's assistance technology - ADAS solutions and of Moovit's transportation patterns optimization.
The integration of Moovit, which is always a key factor of success in M&A transactions, shall be facilitated by (i) Intel's previous knowledge of Moovit as an historical shareholder, and by (ii) concrete common work undertaken by Mobileye and Moovit prior to the acquisition. While Mobileye was the flagship milestone that set Intel's engagement in the automotive industry, Moovit could be the perfect add-on that enables the company to foresee relevant technological and commercial complementarities. The add-on is not neglectable, as Intel doubles its size in automotive technologies.
Intel therefore accelerates in MaaS - Mobility as a Service, definitely a strategic market to the chip giant, while most competitors slow down due to the Covid-19 economic slowdown. “While others working on AV R&D may slow down or downsize their ambitions given the headwinds in our economy, we saw an opportunity to acquire a valuable asset that will help us realize our vision for driverless MaaS even faster,”, said Amnon Shashua, senior vice president of Intel and CEO / CTO of Mobileye, who was on Moovit’s Board of Directors as an observer.
For additional information on the strategic rationale, we are pleased to share the LinkedIn post by Roger Spitz, founder and CEO of Techistential: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6663281063424593921/
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