During the DVN Automotive Lidar Conference and Exhibition, there was a great deal of buzz about a potential acquisition of Ibeo. After ZF pulled out a significant part of their loans and investments some months ago, Ibeo filed for bankruptcy in the court of Hamburg, Germany.
Nevertheless, DVN welcomed Ibeo to participate actively in the conference as a presenter and chairman, in recognition of the company’s pivotal role and pioneering engagement in automotive lidar applications.
In the afternoon on 1st December, MicroVision announced their partial acquisition of Ibeo: “MicroVision [has signed] an agreement to acquire certain assets from Ibeo Automotive Systems for up to €15m. The acquisition combines Mavin Lidar with Ibeo perception software features into the MicroVision ASIC for [automakers]. In addition, this acquisition expands MicroVision’s multi-market strategy focusing on industrial, smart infrastructure, robotics, and commercial vehicle segments with Ibeo’s flash-based sensor”.
Under the terms of the asset purchase agreement, MicroVision will acquire Ibeo assets, IP, and teams to operate within the MicroVision organization. The closing of the acquisition is expected to occur during the first half of 2023, after regulatory clearance by German authorities
MicroVision CEO Sumit Sharma says “This is an exciting time as we welcome the Ibeo team to the MicroVision family. We believe this is the winning combination to accelerate our strategic plan at the exact right time. Our best-in-class hardware solution paired with existing perception features added to our ASIC, accelerated by the Ibeo software and automotive qualification experience, presents a significantly advanced solution. I’m also very excited about the immediate expansion of our multi-market strategy with Ibeo’s sensor and hardware.This allows us to expand our total addressable market beyond automotive and diversify our revenue profile”.
Revenue from a wider range of product lines could make MicroVision less sensitive to market changes. The range will comprise hardware sales from the Mavin sensor; Ibeo’s existing legacy Lux sensor and their first-generation Ibeo Next flash lidar. Other revenue streams can come from royalties from Valeo’s widely-commercialized Scala sensor, along with Ibeo’s auto-annotation; validation; perception software and AD software used by automakers and others.
The forecasted revenue of $8m to $15m is expected from new and existing customers, including top-tier German and American automakers as well as non-automotive customers. MicroVision expects to use Ibeo’s relationship with ZF to manufacture the Mavin lidar sensor. ZF has been producing lidar systems on behalf of Ibeo since 2020 for delivery to Great Wall Motor.
Ibeo’s engineering, sales, and marketing capabilities in Germany and the United States will strengthen MicroVision’s position in lidar hardware and software. The combined engineering teams in Hamburg and Redmond can create synergies in developing lidar hardware, perception software, ASIC,auto-annotation software, and other innovative ADAS and autonomous driving products.