Global Chipset giant Intel has bought Moovit (an Israel-based transit app that uses AI and Bigdata to provide commute suggestions).
Intel bought the company for a total of $900 million, Intel already owned 7% of the company through previous investments and paid $840 million to take full ownership.
Intel has made this deal to support the development of its self-driving robotaxis, which Intel wants to put in business by early 2022 in countries like Israel, North Korea, and France.
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While the app will be allowed to remain independent in its functioning, the data collected by it will be integrated into Intel’s autonomous car unit Mobileye based in Israel. When integrated with Mobileye the data will be fed to Robotaxis to ensure deployment of the vehicles in high demand areas.
Intel has been planning to buy Moovit for quite some time and the deal was fixed in a course of 40 or so digital meetings. The company was valued at $500 million in its last capital raising in 2018. Intel seems determined to launch Robotaxis by 2022, as it has already invested $15.4 billion in the acquisition of Mobileye and $2 billion in the Israeli artificial intelligence firm Habana, and now around a billion more on Moovit. Even so in this time of International Crisis.