Israel AV Mobility Newsletter — Dec.2020
By: Stav Shvartz
Tags: Innovation, Mobility, Israel, Automotive, Autonomous Vehicles

The last month of 2020 has been spectacular for the Israeli AutoTech sector!! With so many announcements of IPO, SPAC and new investment rounds, the industry is at its one of the hottest periods ever! Seems like we are going to have a spectacular 2021…

Wishing a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our readers!

Dec. 1st: Mobileye signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese EV manufacturer NIO, for the development of a RoboTaxi fleet. NIO’s vehicles will be imported to Israel and will be used in trials on Tel Aviv routes with Mobileye’s technology. This collaboration comes after Mobileye signed a Joint venture agreement back in 2018 with Volkswagen importer Champion Motors, to import VW minivans and start advanced trials in 2021. However, the prototype of the VW minivan has not yet reached Israel.

Dec. 2nd: Developer of fleet integration and workforce management solutions Micronet (מיקרונט בע”מ), received a NIS 1M order from a US customer for its SmartCam. The customer, a global leading provider in the field of telematics will order 1000 units of the camera, expected to be delivered during the first quarter of 2021. Micronet SmartCam is an All-In-One Video device with an open Android platform, ruggedized, integrated smart camera. The device is designed for in-vehicle use and coupled with vehicle-connected interfaces, diagnostic capabilities and two cameras. It offers video analytics and telematics services, addressing safety, vehicle health, and tracking needs for fleets.

Dec. 2nd: Argus (Argus Cyber Security Ltd.) CEO and Co-founder Ofer Ben-Noon, is stepping down from CEO position. Ben-Noon is set to remain on as a member of the board, and Ronen Smoly, Argus’ Sales VP, will replace him. The company was founded 7 years ago and was acquired 3 years ago by German automotive Tier1, Continental AG for an estimated $450 million. Argus provides variety of cyber security solutions suites to protect connected cars and commercial vehicles against cyber-attacks.

Dec. 2nd: AI-based City-wide Traffic Management start-up Axilion Smart Mobility (Axilion Ltd.), concluded reserve IPO with APIO-Africa Ltd. According to estimates, the value of the merged company, per the share’s allocation and the existing options, is NIS 600–650 million. Axilion Smart Mobility enables cities to manage traffic with advanced video AI technology from the edge to the Azure cloud. The company’s solution transforms traffic signals into a dynamic and adaptive traffic network and reduces carbon emissions.

Dec. 3rd: Click-Ins’ (קליק-אינס) damage detection technology will be used in Avis rental vehicles. Avis Car Rental company is the first company to use Click-Ins platform. The service will be activated when documenting transfers of leasing vehicles from the customer to the garage, and in latter stage, will be integrated into the company’s rental activity. Click-Ins is an AI, SaaS-based vehicle damage detection and assessment platform designed to automatically detect, analyze and process vehicle damage with high precision and consistency, using a smartphone without the need for special equipment or skilled personnel. Click-Ins was founded at 2014 and raised USD 7 million, from investors including Shlomo Group, which holds the leasing and rental company Shlomo Sixt.

Dec. 7th: Computer vision and AI developer, Eyesight Technologies (Now Cipia) announced the start of production with a Chinese OEM. The OEM selected Eyesight’s Driver Sense software-based driver monitoring system (DMS) to be integrated into their new car model. The production of the model already began in November 2020 and the first cars expected to hit the road in the following weeks. Eyesight also announced that an existing US OEM has doubled its order for the integration of the Eyesight Driver Sense, planning to start production in 2021. Eyesight Driver Sense utilizes AI and computer vision to monitor and identify visual attributes in real-time to determine driver’s state and actions such as distraction and drowsiness in order to create a safer driving experience.

Dec. 8th: Software-based tactile sensing provider Tactile Mobility (טקטייל מוביליטי), the City of Detroit and a major Detroit-based automaker joined forces to improve Detroit road safety and maintenance. The three conduct Proof of Concept to demonstrate Tactile Mobility’s in-vehicle software and insights’ ability to provide an objective, ‘up-to-date’ and accurate road pavement rating mapping solution. The POC aims to solve one of Detroit’s main challenges: improving pavement conditions and optimizing maintenance.

Dec.9th: French multinational in rail transport, Alstom Salstom invests and signs strategic cooperation agreement with railway cybersecurity start-up Cylusסיילוס) ). Alstom is to invest $7 million in Cylus thus, acquire a minority stake in the company and gain one seat on the board of Cylus. As part of the strategic cooperation, the companies will build a commercial partnership by integrating cybersecurity technology into railway processes, components and software solutions. The technology will be implemented first in Tel Aviv metropolitan light rail system with a capacity of 200,000 passengers a day. Cylus solutions and services for the protection of railway assets against cyber threats, collectively named CylusOne, designed to be integrated into both mainline and urban networks and is compatible with communication-based train control (CBTC), as well as the European Train Control System (ETCS).

Dec. 9th: Inbar Group Finance (ענבר גרופ פיננסים בע”מ) shares price jump 60% since announcing signing an agreement with electric motorcycle company, Blitz Electric Motors (בליץ קטנועים חשמליים) and entering the electric motorcycles sector. The shares reflect a market value of NIS 32.6 million, and approximately NIS 80–130 million for the merged company. Reportedly, between 60%-75% of Inbar’s shares will be allocated to Blitz Motors. Blitz designs and manufactures two-wheeled electric vehicles and light weight, easy to charge batteries, currently in the process of patenting its battery technology.

Dec. 11th: Israeli LiDAR sensors developer Innoviz Technologies (אינוויז) plans to list on Nasdaq at $1.4b valuation. The company announced SPAC in which it will list through a merger with blank check company Collective Growth Corp. The merged company will list under INVZ and retain the Innoviz Technologies name. The deal, sponsored by Antara Capital LP and Perception Capital Partners LPC, will provide Innoviz with up to $350 million in capital and $150 million of cash held in trust by Collective Growth.

Dec. 15th: Axilion Smart Mobility (Axilion Ltd.) announced a three-month pilot in Jerusalem to optimize traffic lights system in the city. Axilion AI system will be deployed around the city as smart cameras will be installed on buses, municipal service vehicles and more. Axilion will establish a Mobility Digital Twin, based on Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, which will be connected to the traffic light control system in Jerusalem municipality.

Dec. 16th: Ottopia (אוטופיה) was selected as one of the most suitable solutions to be integrated into L4 autonomous vehicles by BMW Group. Ottopia’s Teleoperation platform has been evaluated by leading automotive players and was selected by the BMW Group as a preferred multi SIM teleoperation technology to support autonomous driving services. Over several months, Ottopia’s solution had been tested on public roads while using public LTE networks on an autonomous BMW Group vehicle. The test included transferring 360 degrees High-Definition video from a moving vehicle to BMW control center. Ottopia’s AI-based teleoperation software platform enables continuous data transfer to and from a moving vehicle, with minimal delay, using minimal bandwidth. It predicts the quality of each cellular carrier along the vehicle’s route, utilizing the best performing networks at every moment, while compressing the data in real-time to fit the network capacity.

Dec. 16th: Mobileye released a video of self-driving car on Munich roads. The video shows a driver in a Ford vehicle cruising the roads with hands off the wheel, while a screen shows him the route and traffic ahead. The vehicle navigates traffic, stops at lights, changes lanes and cruising the highway at speed up to 130 kph (80 mph). The vehicle uses Mobileye’s camera-only based system, along with a sensing technology that uses Radar and LiDAR. Mobileye explains that the deployment of the autonomous vehicle at Munich is enabled due to crowdsourced data it has collected from cars on the road and sends the information directly to the cloud, automatically processed into high-definition maps.

Dec. 16th: Developer of in-cabin driver monitoring systems Jungo (Jungo Connectivity), was selected by a global OEM for their RoboTaxi program. Jungo will provide its CoDriver in-cabin Camera-based driver monitoring software solution, based on deep learning, machine learning and computer vision algorithms. Jungo system aims to provide the car with a complete, real-time picture of the driver’s condition, and together with additional ADAS components through Sensor Fusion, help vehicles to better understand the relationships between events, internal and external to the vehicle cabin. Other products of Jungo include: WinDriver — a PC driver development toolkit, MediaCore — automotive multimedia middleware, and DriverCore — PC USB communication drivers.

Dec. 17th: Ride-hailing service Gett partners with smart-911 service Carbyne (קרביין) to insure safer rides. Gett will incorporate Carbyne’s technology that will help connect riders with emergency services. Users will be able to press a button and directly communicate with Israel’s United Hatzalah emergency center, police, or IDF personal for a live video, chat, and location services. Carbyne’s call-handling platform will serve as the gateway for the location data and provide the ability for the call center to communicate with each rider, as the system integrates seamlessly and risk-free into any existing 911 legacy infrastructure. Carbyne was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of $23 million from private investors and VCs.

Dec. 27th: Developer of modular platforms for EV, REE Automotive (REE אוטומוטיב) in negotiations for a $4 billion Nasdaq SPAC merger. For the past three months REE had negotiate to go public at a market value of $ 3–4 billion, expecting to be completed in January 2021. REE is expected to receive access to the SPAC’s funds and to another several hundreds of millions of dollars in PIPE investments, should the SPAC merger go ahead. REE’s Shares have been traded in the secondary market this year at a valuation of $1.1 billion.

Dec. 27th: Smartphone distraction prevention start-up SaverOne (סייברוואן 2014 בע”מ) signs agreements for 3 new pilots. SaverOne will start the pilots with Plasson and Hanson companies as well as Bnei Shimon Regional municipality, in which its system will be installed in the companies’ and employees’ vehicles. These join other of Saver One’s pilots in recent month including with Israel Railways, Israel Electric Corporation, the IDF and others. The start-up share price rised 5.8% after the new pilots announcement. SaverOne technology offers an in-vehicle protection system designed to prevent accidents that result from texting while driving. The system prevents the driver from using texting applications while the vehicle is in motion using RF, machine learning, and signal processing.

Dec. 27th: Computerized vision system company, Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd. (פורסייט אוטונומס הולדינגס בע”מ) plans further equity offering on Nasdaq. Since the beginning of December, Foresight’s share price jumped by 314%, made it embark on a further equity offering in New York. The company’s shares are currently traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and on Nasdaq. According to market estimates, the company aims to raise tens of millions of shekels, depending on demand, at a discount of 5–15% on the market price.

This month, Foresight also partnered with University of Michigan’s TechLab at Mcity to enhance vision systems for autonomous vehicles. On December 16th, Foresight announced it will join the company’s 2021 startup cohort, managed by the Center for Entrepreneurship, to further develop its automotive vision system designed for ADAS and AV. Foresight will participate in the one-year program with a team of students from technical departments at the University, focused on the development, demonstration, and deployment of key autonomous vehicle technologies. The team will be mentored by Foresight’s Head of Algorithm and leading team members. Foresight will have access to a test facility in the largest automotive hub in the US and will be able to run short-cycle demonstrations to local prospects.

Dec. 28th: Transport optimization platform supplier, Trucknet Enterprise (טראקנט) is planning an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Trucknet, part of Capital Nature funding group, is interested in raising several tens of millions of shekels and expected to begin a “road show” round among institutional investors in the near future. Trucknet’s cloud-based transport optimization platform utilizes smart freight exchange to improve efficiency and profitability while reducing environmental impact. Its system consists of the following components: The Trucknet platform (automatically matches empty vehicles to subcontractor requests from other companies), TMS (internal schedule software for transportation companies), Driver Interface (a mobile application for the driver), Tracker (a mobile application for end-to-end delivery, currently in development), Trucknet Telematics (a central interface for different telematics systems, in development).

Dec. 29th: Automotive In-cabin Air Quality & UX Management System developer Crispify (Crispify) announced a $700,000 Pre-Seed round. Participated in the investment are International car rental company, Avis Budget Group, Hatcher VC, Connetic Ventures, GoAhead Ventures, MTT Ventures, and accelerator program LA Fusion. Founded in 2019, The new Israeli start-up’s system installed in vehicles, promise to monitor the air in the car, and alerts to any hazardous changes in the quality of air, including COVID. The system combines a hardware-software solution to collect the data, basing it on AI algorithms that operate in the cloud and on endpoints in real-time to analyze and enrich the incoming data. Drivers are alerted to potential hazardous contaminations in real-time, as well as provide predictions of possible recurrence in the future. Additionally, the system alerts against poor in-cabin maintenance or concentration of potentially hazardous pollutants.

Sources: Globes; PR Newswire; Cipia; Sponsor; Startup Nation Central; CTech; Calcalist; The Marker; GlobeNewswire; The Times of Israel; Youtube; TechTime; Jungo; Bizportal; Geektime; Businesswire.

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