Intel acquires Israeli mobility service provider Moovit for $900 million

Intel said the acquisition of Moovit would help it develop self-driving “robotaxis” that could take to the streets in early 2022.

Moovit, a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions company, is known for its urban mobility application that offers multimodal trip planning by combining public transportation, bicycle and scooter services, ride-hailing, and car-sharing. 

Moovit provides public transit and navigation data to simplify urban mobility in 3,100 cities around the world.

The addition of Moovit brings Intel’s Mobileye closer to achieving its plan to become a complete mobility provider, including robotaxi services, which is forecast to be an estimated $160 billion opportunity by 2030.

The app experience will not change and the company will continue to serve users, customers and partners with the exceptional level of service, professionalism and dedication they’ve come to expect, Moovit stated.

“Intel’s purpose is to create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on Earth, and our Mobileye team delivers on that purpose every day,” said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. “Mobileye’s ADAS technology is already improving the safety of millions of cars on the road, and Moovit accelerates their ability to truly revolutionize transportation – reducing congestion and saving lives – as a full-stack mobility provider.”

Moovit has established its leadership in the MaaS space with more than 800 million users and services in 3,100 cities across 102 countries. Today, Mobileye is the leading automotive solutions partner that enables advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) deployed on nearly 60 million vehicles with more than 25 automaker partners.

Mobileye is a growth engine for Intel as the company transforms for a world where the exponential growth of data fuels demand for technology solutions that can process, move and store more data faster. Intel is investing and expanding to serve new data-rich market opportunities, including the fast-growing market for ADAS, data and MaaS technologies, which together represent an opportunity totaling more than $230 billion by 2030. 

Upon close, Moovit will join the Mobileye business while retaining its brand and existing partnerships.

“Moovit’s massive global user base, proprietary transportation data, global editors community, strong partnerships with key transit and mobility ecosystem partners, and highly skilled team is what makes them a great investment,” said Professor Amnon Shashua, CEO of Mobileye. “Moovit is a strong brand trusted by hundreds of millions of people globally. Together, with Mobileye’s extensive capabilities in mapping and self-driving technology, we will be able to accelerate our timeline to transform the future of mobility.”

Founded in 2012, Tel Aviv, Israel-based Moovit has approximately 200 employees. Moovit combines information from public transit operators and authorities with live information from the user community to offer travelers a real-time picture of the best route for their journey. In the past 24 months, Moovit has achieved a seven-times increase in users. Moovit has also signed strategic partnership agreements with major ride-sharing operators and mobility ecosystem companies for analytics, routing, optimization and operations for MaaS. With this acquisition, Mobileye will be able to use Moovit’s large proprietary transportation dataset to optimize predictive technologies based on customer demand and traffic patterns, as well as tap into Moovit’s transit data repository of more than 7,500 key transit agencies and operators, and improve the consumer experience for more than 800 million users worldwide. 

Moovit’s consumer applications and user experience will continue under its own brand.

Nir Erez, the CEO and co-founder of Moovit, will join Mobileye’s executive team as an executive vice president.

“We are excited to join forces with Mobileye and lead the future revolution of new mobility services,” said Nir Erez. “Mobility is a basic human right, and as cities become more crowded, urban mobility becomes more difficult. Combining the daily mobility habits and needs of millions of Moovit users with the state-of-the-art, safe, affordable and eco-friendly transportation enabled by self-driving vehicles, we will be able to make cities better places to live in. We share this vision and look forward to making it a reality as part of Mobileye.”

Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017. Since then, Mobileye revenues have more than doubled on the increased adoption of ADAS based on Mobileye’s industry-leading technology. Mobileye’s vision-safety technology aims to make roads safer, reduce traffic congestion and save lives. Mobileye provides a complete autonomous vehicle solution stack that is technically advanced, provides unmatched agility and safety, and copes with a wide variety of driving complexities.

Mobileye’s business model encompasses the entire automated driving value chain, including the front-facing camera that powers most of today’s ADAS, conditional autonomy – also known as level 2+ – and the self-driving system (SDS) for self-driving shuttles and robotaxis as well as consumer autonomous vehicles (AVs). Mobileye has strong performance in every one of these categories with advanced vision sensing technology, crowd-sourced mapping capability (REM) and the Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) driving policy.

By working together as part of Intel and Mobileye, Moovit will advance the company’s MaaS strategy and the global adoption of autonomous transportation.

A Reuters report said deal talks started with Moovit seeking to raise capital before the novel coronavirus outbreak globally. Moovit had enough cash to sustain itself for about a year, and when the economic impact of the pandemic became evident, it decided to explore an outright sale to Intel, the source added. The deal was negotiated in 40 days through virtual meetings, the report cired a source as saying.