Mobileye made its name, and its money, supplying automakers with millions of computer vision chips designed to support car safety features and advanced driver assistance systems. The Intel subsidiary and publicly traded company later expanded to address autonomous driving through its chips and software.
Now, co-founder and president Amnon Shashua is leading the company into what he calls Mobileye 3.0. And that means robotics and a heavy acquisition.
The Israeli company announced Tuesday during CES in Las Vegas that it has reached an agreement to acquire Mentee Robotics — a startup co-founded by Shashua in 2022 — for $900 million. Under the deal, Mobileye will buy Mentee Robotics for about $612 million in cash and up to 26.2 million shares of common stock. Shashua, who is the chairman, co-founder and major shareholder of Mentee, has withdrawn from the consideration and approval of Mobileye’s board of directors, according to the company.
The transaction, which was approved by Mobileye’s board of directors and Intel, its largest shareholder, is expected to close in the first quarter. The transaction is expected to modestly increase Mobileye’s operating expenses in 2026 by a low single-digit percentage.
“Today marks a new chapter in robotics and automotive AI, and the beginning of Mobileye 3.0,” Shashua said on Tuesday. “By combining Mentee’s discoveries in humanoid robotics with Mobileye’s expertise in car autonomy and its proven ability to produce advanced artificial intelligence, we have a unique opportunity to lead the evolution of natural artificial intelligence in robotics and autonomous vehicles on a global scale.”
Mentee Robotics, which develops humanoid robots, will continue as an independent unit within Mobileye. Of course, with Shashua as the mastermind and shareholder between the two companies, there is bound to be a lot of overlap.
The advantages for Mobileye aren’t entirely obvious except that everyone seems to be getting into the humanoid robot game these days. Officially, Mobileye said the acquisition “broadens the scope of the business with a decisive step towards Natural Artificial Intelligence in general”. Specifically, systems designed to understand context and intent as well as naturally interact with people and the natural world.
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In other words, Mobileye and Shashua seem to want to go beyond the technology used to enable vehicles to navigate the world and apply it to humanoid robots as well. The company suggests in its announcement that it has the capital to get there, noting that its current revenue pipeline from the automotive industry — driven by advanced vehicle autonomy and key advanced driver assistance technology — is $24.5 billion over the next eight years. The company said the number of pipelines is up more than 40% compared to January 2023.
Of course, developing humanoid robots that can eventually go into production will be a costly enterprise. The Mentee stands to gain significantly as they can leverage Mobileye’s resources, which include advanced AI training infrastructure — aka computers.
News of the acquisition comes a day after Mobileye announced another customer win for its next-generation chip designed for advanced driver assistance systems. The company announced Monday that a “top 10 automaker” has struck a deal to buy 9 million of its EyeQ6H-based Surround ADAS systems. Volkswagen Group announced in March that it would also use the chip. Mobileye now estimates the future delivery of more than 19 million EyeQ6H-based surround systems.
