OurCrowd AI Fund to Collaborate with NVIDIA Inception

OurCrowd AI Fund announced it will offer select artificial intelligence startups, in collaboration with NVIDIA, a fast track into the NVIDIA Inception program.

The OurCrowd AI Fund provides investors with access to the next revolutionary wave of global venture capital opportunities in mission-centric AI companies and the generative AI space, helping solve real-world problems across multiple verticals.

The fund will invest in 20-25 venture investments diversified by stage and geography, sourced by a team of dedicated investment professionals, along with professionals from OurCrowd’s global network of third-party VC funds. The fund will also pursue follow-on opportunities in the most promising portfolio investments.

So far, several companies have been approved to be part of OurCrowd’s AI Fund including:

  • D-ID– D-ID revolutionizes digital interactions with AI-powered Digital People, enhancing customer engagement across various sectors, and has produced over 150 million videos for diverse clients including Fortune 500 companies.
  • One Zero Digital Bank– Israel’s first fully licensed digital bank, leveraging technology to provide customers with an automated private banking experience.
  • Polaris Quantum Biotech– Applying quantum computing technology to find promising molecules for the process of drug development.

“The OurCrowd AI Fund gives accredited investors the chance to access the most promising opportunities in AI startups as identified by experienced venture capital experts,” said Jon Medved [pictured above], CEO and Founder of OurCrowd. “Our collaboration with NVIDIA Inception will help give qualifying companies in the fund access to a program tailor-made to nurture startups and equip them for success.”

“When people think of artificial intelligence today, they think of generative AI programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, the transformative power of AI goes much further than its ability to generate text, photographs, music, video, and other materials,” Medved said. “Investors need to take a vertical view of the AI revolution. The application of AI to each business vertical will transform our world and shape the economies of the future. AI is poised to affect every industry sector, with an impact comparable to the introduction of cloud computing, social media, the smartphone, the PC, and, before that, electricity.”

NVIDIA Inception helps startups evolve faster through cutting-edge technology, opportunities to connect with venture capitalists, and access to the latest technical resources and tools from NVIDIA. The program supports all stages of a startup’s life cycle.

Arik Kol, Senior Director, Head of NVIDIA Inception Israel said, “Our collaboration with OurCrowd AI Fund will develop the next generation of AI startups, helping to shape the way that AI will benefit multiple aspects of our lives.”

Qualifying startups selected for the OurCrowd AI Fund portfolio will be fast-tracked into Inception, which will support them through access to NVIDIA Training courses. These companies will also benefit from opportunities to collaborate with industry-leading experts and access to additional investors, as well as cloud credits through NVIDIA partners and preferred pricing on select NVIDIA hardware and software.

OurCrowd is Israel’s most active AI investor, with $386M invested across 81 AI companies worldwide, with 8 exits to date including Lemonade, Magisto, and BriefCam, and is ranked among the top 15 most active VCs worldwide in AI deals since 2012, according to an analysis of PitchBook data.

Hailo Secures Two New Distribution Partners in America

Adding depth to its global sales reach, Hailo, the pioneering chipmaker of edge artificial intelligence (AI) processors, announced today the addition of two partners to its distribution network: J-Squared Technologies in North America, and Macnica DHW in South America.

“The global demand for our edge AI technology is growing rapidly across a range of industries and applications, and the addition of these two prominent distribution partners will strengthen our ability to serve the needs of both current and new customers as we continue to make high-performance AI widely available and affordable outside the realm of data-centers,” said Hailo CEO and Co-Founder Orr Danon.

J-Squared Technologies, one of North America’s leading distributors of computing hardware solutions, will enable Hailo to expand its presence in both the United States and Canada, extending its reach to customers in fields such as smart retail, smart cities, smart homes, military, aerospace, Industry 4.0, and beyond.

D.C. Smalley, General Manager of Hailo North America added: “The partnership with J-Squared Technologies is part of Hailo’s strategy to strengthen collaboration with existing customers in North America to enable companies from a wide array of industries to enhance edge computing performance with AI capabilities. J-Squared has the experience and scale to help drive our business across a broad range of verticals in the region.”

Macnica DHW will serve as Hailo’s distributor in South America with a focus on Brazil. The company is a subsidiary of Macnica Japan, Japan’s largest distributor of semiconductors and the fifth largest in the world. Macnica Japan is a long-trusted Hailo distributor.

“Working with Macnica DHW will significantly strengthen our presence in Brazil and other South American countries, where interest and demand for Edge AI solutions continues to rise – specifically in the industrial, medical, smart city and security verticals,” said Yaron Ofer, Regional General Manager at Hailo. “As these customers seek to empower their devices with AI capabilities at the edge, we are confident that Macnica DHW’s expertise in disruptive technologies in the edge AI space will support the expansion of our offerings in the region.”

Since its founding in Israel in 2017, Hailo has become a leading global supplier of intelligent AI accelerators and AI vision processors, that serves more than 300 customers around the world. The company has offices in Tokyo, Taipei, Shenzhen, Seoul, Munich, Silicon Valley, and Chicago, and has a wide range of distributor partners across Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and Europe.

Avnet ASIC selected to become a Value Chain Aggregator by TSMC

Avnet ASIC Israel Ltd, (AAI) a leading provider of ASIC and SoC full turnkey solutions and a business division of Avnet Silica, an Avnet company (NASDAQ: AVT), has been appointed as a Value Chain Aggregator (VCA) by TSMC, the world’s leading silicon foundry. The appointment positions Avnet ASIC Israel Ltd as a channel for TSMC ASIC customers, offering a full turnkey solution from design inception to layout and mass production, implemented in TSMC’s most advanced silicon processes.

The collaboration signifies a landmark agreement within Avnet, enhancing the offerings by combining the strong technology of TSMC with the ASIC design and manufacturing capabilities of Avnet ASIC. This best-of-class initiative enables access to TSMC’s most advanced silicon processes for customers, establishing Avnet ASIC as a channel partner of TSMC for comprehensive ASIC SoC solutions.

“We are pleased to welcome Avnet ASIC Israel Ltd. as a VCA to TSMC’s offering. Their outstanding track record with TSMC’s technologies and expertise in design, production, and diverse applications such as automotive and AI, is valuable to us, and is an instrument to bring exceptional value to our customers and help expand our market “, said Paul de Bot, General Manager of TSMC EMEA.

TSMC’s VCA program is designed to extend TSMC’s reach, serving a diverse range of customers. As a VCA partner, Avnet ASIC integrates design enablement within TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform® (OIP), offering services at each link in the IC value chain, including IP development, design, backend, wafer manufacturing, assembly, and testing.

“Our longstanding 20 years partnership and collaboration with TSMC is a testament to our unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence. This further solidifies our position in the industry enabling us to bring competitive advantage to our mutual customers by securing faster time to market and safe path to mass production”, said Yulia Milshtein, GM, Head of Business at Avnet ASIC Israel.

Pavel Vilk, GM, Head of Engineering, added, “With a rich track of record of numerous first time successful design projects in all process nodes down to the cutting-edge 4nm, showcasing a profound understanding of TSMC’s offerings, we are further amplifying our services in domains like AI, Automotive, HPC, Data Centers and more and we are ready to support our mutual customers addressing these state of the art applications”.

Knowles Shows a Wide Range of Microwave Products

Knowles Precision Devices DLI provides Microwave and mmWave products based on two core competencies: ceramic expertise and thin film manufacturing. These technologies addresses the challenge of implementing high performance mmWave filters for Radar, EW and 5G applications.

The Microwave and mmWave products covers: Bandpass filters designed from 800MHz to 67GHz; Filter Size reduction: up to 20x using CG material based microstrip filters; Extremely High Repeatability through Precision Thin Film Fabrication; Temperature Stable over -55 to +125°C.

Among the Company’s products: Microwave and mmWave Filters, Couplers, Power Dividers, Gain Equalizers, Bias Networks and Resonators. To learn more about the product range please download our Microwave Product Guide. To understand more about filter technology, mmWave filters, microstrip filters and their role in 5G applications please visit our 5G Filter Product Page and  5G Applications Page.

             

 

Knowles is represented and supported in Israel by Elina Electronic Engineering Group.

For more information, contact:

mulu@elina.co.il,  +972-54-2509599

P3 to use Mobileye Drive for its robotaxis

Mobileye and the Croatia-based Project 3 Mobility (P3), announced a collaboration to explore a new mobility service, utilizing Mobileye’s scalable self-driving technology, Mobileye Drive. The first P3 service is aimed to be launched in Zagreb in 2026, with testing and validation of Mobileye’s AV solution on the streets of the Croatian capital targeted to start in 2024.

Project 3 Mobility is developing a fully autonomous electric vehicle for urban mobility ecosystem and the needed specialised infrastructure and mobility services. The vehicle is built on a completely new platform designed for fully autonomous driving. The project will create a new mobility service in the wider area of Zagreb based on the concept of “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS). Project 3 Mobility is about to establish a production facility in Croatia for the large-scale production of autonomous vehicles that will be deployed worldwide.

Mobileye technology will be integrated into the P3 vehicle, which will use the Mobileye Drive autonomous driving solution. Currently, Project 3 Mobility has a team of more than 240 people with experts from more than 20 different industries and nationalities in two offices – in Croatia and the UK. P3 has already signed agreements with 9 cities across the EU, UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council to provide its urban autonomous service.

Project 3 Mobility plans to invest at least EUR 350 million before going to market. In May 2023 it secured a 179,5 million euros grant from the European Commission, and in the beginning of February 2024 P3 had closed a 100 million euros Series A investment round. Among the current investors: Kia, SiteGround  and Rimac Group.

Jerusalem-based Mobileye has developed an autonomous driving and driver-assistance technologies. Today, more than 170 million vehicles worldwide have been built with Mobileye technology inside. Its 2023 annual revenue tota;;ed $2.08 billion- 11.24% growth year-over-year. The company’s Future business backlog continues to grow, with 2023 design wins projected to generate future revenue of $7.4 billion across 61 million units.

Hailo’s AI chips to empower new chinese car models

Hailo, the pioneering chipmaker of edge artificial intelligence (AI) processors, today announced that leading autonomous driving solutions provider iMotion has selected the groundbreaking Hailo-8 AI accelerator and the Renesas R-Car V4H SoC (System-on-Chip) to power iMotion iDC High domain controller for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD).

The incorporation of Hailo-8 AI processors within iMotion iDC High domain controller is a giant step forward for the automotive industry, making applications such as Highway Pilot / Navigate on Autopilot (NoA), Automated Home Parking, and in the future also Urban Pilot / NoA, viable and cost-effective for mass market vehicles. A Chinese automaker is expected to begin mass production with iMotion iDC High domain controller in the second half of this year.

The high-performance iDC High enables Bird’s Eye View 3D perception for advanced automated driving applications and enhances safety and comfort with a 10V5R sensor configuration. Importantly, the low power consumption of the Hailo-8 accelerator enables passive cooling of the ECU, lowering the cost of the residual bill of materials (BoM) and simplifying the vehicle integration.

“The integration of Hailo’s groundbreaking Hailo-8 AI accelerator and the high-performance Renasas R-Car V4H SoC significantly improves the affordability of iMotion’s AD/ADAS domain controller while enabling best-in-class processing capabilities, an important development in our shared commitment to make advanced automated driving safer and more affordable for all vehicles,” said Orr Danon, Hailo CEO. “Partnering with iMotion represents another key milestone in our quest to make our AI technology foundational in the 21st century global automotive industry that needs high performance, cost-effective, robust and scalable AI solutions for automated driving and parking.”

“We chose to partner with Hailo for high performance AI in ADAS because of the advanced AI capabilities and efficiencies their Hailo-8 AI processor brings to the market for the benefit of all drivers. The Hailo-8 accelerator is unique in its ability to enable power-efficient AI acceleration of state-of-the-art Neural Networks with low energy consumption that greatly advances automotive innovation,” said iMotion CTO Calvin Lu.

Further amplifying that point, Takeshi Fuse, Vice President of Marketing, High Performance Computing Division of Renesas, noted: “The integration of the Renesas R-Car SoC with the Hailo-8 AI accelerator further enables unprecedented capabilities such as Bird’s-Eye-View 3D perception at an affordable cost for mass market vehicles. Together, we are bringing to life a new era in high performance, affordable automated driving that will benefit the Chinese automotive market specifically and the automotive industry at large.”

Innoviz Announced Operational Realignment

Photo above: Test cars in Innoviz’ lab. Credit: Techtime

Innoviz Technologies announced a strategic realignment of its operations to expand the Company’s cash runway and optimize its path towards cash flow generation. The realignment includes the reduction of the Company’s headcount by approximately 13%, the transition of InnovizOne LiDAR sensor into series production and the concentration of future investments on the InnovizTwo sensor and software platform. In late 2022, Innoviz employed approximately 470 employees. It means it reduces its workforce by 60 jobs.

As a result, Innoviz expects to reduce its 2024 planned cash outlays by $22-24 million on an annualized basis. Cash savings are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2024 with run rate savings expected to be achieved by the end of the second quarter of 2024.  Omer Keilaf, Innoviz Co-Founder and CEO, said there is a market capture window that will determine the market share of the LiDAR industry for the next decade.

“Today’s actions are the result of a thoughtful process to optimize the Company’s cost structure, increase our competitive positioning, and extend our cash runway through the expected remainder of the market capture window. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our long-term goals and become a market leader in automotive LiDAR.”

Innoviz is a Tier 1 supplier of LiDAR sensors and perception software for the automotive industry and works with partners cross the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The company is traded in NASDAQ in a valuation of $ 282 millions. Its stock price is very low compared with it orinigal valuation of $ 1.4 billion (December 2020), following delays in the adoption of LiDAR technology across the automotive industry.

During CES 2024 last month in Las Vegas, BMW Group brought the new BMW i7 with level 3 autonomous driving capabilities enabled by the InnovizOne LiDAR is now available to order in Germany with deliveries expected to begin March 2024. Volkswagen showd its light commercial vehicle program VW ID. Buzz, utilizing InnovizTwo LiDAR for level 4 autonomous capabilities.