Author: Techtime

Eltek Brings New Managers to Regain Profitability

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Eltek Ltd. (NASDAQ: ELTK) from Petah-Tikva, Israel, is reinforcing its top management to turn the achieve turnaround and become profitable. Eltek manufactures advanced printed circuit boards (PCBs), specially complex and high quality PCBs, HDI, multilayered and flex-rigid boards for the high-end market in Israel and the US. The company is struggling with low margins. Revenues for the first six months of 2018 were $17.6 million compared to $16 million in the first six months of 2017. Gross profit was only $1 million and the company announced $1.3 million Operating loss.

This was the background for the current move: Eltek appointed four industry experts to help its newly arrived CEO, Eli Yaffe, to shake the company. Gil Riff joined the Company as its VP Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement. Previously served as the Director of Process Engineering and Printed Circuits Boards of the aviation division of Elbit Systems and prior thereto he was a factory technologist in Elbit System’s printed circuits boards department.

Shmuel Wider was appointed as VP of Sales. Prior to joining Eltek Mr. Wider served as the COO and CBO of Bio-Nexus Ltd., and prior thereto he served as the Vice President of Sales of AudioCodes Ltd. The Director of Operations is Itzik Tzemach, former Director of Production and Logistics for at Kahane Group and VP Operations for Zikon and Director of Factory Production at Aladdin. The role of Procurement Officer and Chief Information Officer was given to Mr. Assi Bachar, until lately the the Chief Information Officer for Comtal Group.

Eli Yaffe, CEO, said the new management team has already begun working together in harmony. “The team is highly motivated and is working hard to increase customer satisfaction and bring Eltek back to profitability.”

Xilinx prepares a $5.5 billion offer to Acquire Mellanox

Mellanox CEO Eyal Waldman
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Xilinx is planning to bid for Mellanox at $100 per, giving it a total price of approximately $5.5 billion. CNBC quoted unidentified sources, claiming that Xilinx had hired Barclays to advise in promoting the deal. This follows earlier CNBC report of published in October 25, saying that Mellanox appointed an investment bank to explore its sale. The news drove Mellanox’ shares price in NASDAQ from $65.9 two weeks ago, to $92.7 today, giving the Israeli company a market cap of more than $4.9 billion.

The Theoretical Test of Eyal Waldman

Eyal Waldman, Mellanox’ Founder, Chairman and President  (photo above) never denied the possibility of selling the company, but said that it is pointless to sell a company while it grows more than 30% annually. Last week Mellanox published preliminary information Q3 results: Record sales of $ 279.2 million, up 24% compared with the third quarter of 2008, with first nine months growth of 27.5%, to $798.7 million. Its annual estimate is $1.1 billion sales in 2018, compared to $864 million in 2017. That is below the theoretical parameterof Waldman.

Mellanox' Stocks in NASDAQ during the last week
Mellanox’ Stocks in NASDAQ during the last week

Despite the separate fields of activity of the two companies, both are at the heart of a joint technological change.

Mellanox provides fast connectivity solutions for data centers, cloud infrastructures and supercomputers. It is considered the world’s largest provider of InfiniBand solutions for supercomputers. Its strategy is based on complete solutions based on its own core semiconductor chips. Xilinx provides programmable solutions on-chip that includes FPGAs, high-speed communication interfaces, and multiple processing technologies. They both are driven by the same trend: Growth of Cloud and Data centers that need provide on demand services at an accelerating speeds.

Why Xilinx needs Mellanox

In January of this year Moshe Gavrielov, Xilinx CEO for the last 10 years, left the office and was replaced by Victor Peng. In August this year, Peng announced a new strategy for the company, creating a new computing infrastructure called Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform – a concept that the company has developed over the last four years with $1 billion investment.

The idea is that the future computing systems will be different: they will be flexible, will change their architecture and resources according to the changing needs, and will depend on very fast communication channels within the processing chips and the various processing modules in the overall data center. It is easy to see how Mellanox’s fast connectivity technologies can be integrated into this strategy.

Linse Capital and Oppenheimer Invested $63M in Valens

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In-car communication get extra fuel with the $63 million investment of Linse Capital and Oppenheimer Asset Management in Valens, the developer of HDBaseT high speed communication technology for the audiovisual and automotive markets. The company is looking to accelerate the development of its portfolio for the autonomous vehicles and address the ongoing requirements of its automotive partners.

Valens’ HDBaseT Automotive chipsets enable the transmission of high-throughput, time-sensitive applications over an HDBaseT Automotive link, revolutionizing in-vehicle connectivity. The Valens Automotive chipsets bring the convergence of audio & video, Ethernet, USB, controls and power over a single unshielded twisted pair cable. In June 2017 it announced the VA6000 HDBaseT Automotive integrated circuit. The VA6000 enables symmetric tunneling of multimedia content, with a speed of up to 6Gbps over a single unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable for up to 15 meters.

Since its latest funding in 2017, Valens, with strategic partnerships with leading OEMs and tier-1s, has identified significant opportunities in the autonomous sector. By raising additional capital, the company will be ramping up its activities in the sector, addressing in-vehicle high-performance computing, smart architectures and PCIe transmission, to realize the vision of the autonomous car.

ADAS System connected via HDBaseT Automotive communication chipset
ADAS System connected via HDBaseT Automotive communication chipset

“The autonomous and connected vehicles that automakers are designing today depend on advanced chipsets to enable high-speed data transmission, said Dror Jerushalmi, CEO and Co-Founder of Valens. “Our technology is leading the pack, optimizing in-vehicle connectivity to handle increased bandwidth with less complexity.” According to Michael Linse, Managing Director at Linse Capital, “Valens’ technology is ahead of its time and will revolutionize how car manufacturers design and deliver the autonomous and connected car of the future.”.”

“Oppenheimer recognizes that the rapid technological evolution happening in the automotive industry requires high-speed connectivity. Investing in Valens allows Oppenheimer’s clients to participate in that evolution,” said Robin Graham, Head of Technology Investment Banking at Oppenheimer. “We believe Valens’ technology will enable the automotive industry to meet the increasingly stringent design requirements of advanced connectivity and autonomous driving.”

HDBaseT Automotive chip technology enables unparalleled in-vehicle connectivity, converging audio & video, Ethernet, USB, controls, PCIe, and power over a single cable. This patented technology is used by the world’s largest audio/video component manufacturers and is promoted by the HDBaseT Alliance. Since its founding in 2010 by LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Valens, the Alliance has brought together the leading names in the consumer electronics, professional AV, industrial and automotive sectors, and it counts today with more than 200 members and thousands of products.

Hyundai Invests in Deep Learning Startup allegro.ai

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Hyundai Motor’s venture fund, Hyundai CRADLE, announced a strategic investment in allegro.ai from Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv who developed deep learning (DL) – based computer vision software platform. Founded in 2016, allegro.ai offers end-to-end DL lifecycle management solution focused on deep learning as it applies to computer vision. The company’s platform simplifies the process of developing and managing deep learning-powered solutions – such as autonomous vehicles, drones, security, logistics and others.

“Our investment in allego.ai is enhancing our presence in Israel,” said Ruby Chen, Head of Investment at Hyundai CRADLE Tel Aviv. “This is our fifth investment in Israeli companies. Our investments will continue to grow the coming year.” Hyundai Motor Employs more than 110,000 employees worldwide and sold more than 4.5 million vehicles globally.

Last April, Allegro has closed its Series A fundraising round, led by MizMaa Ventures, with participation of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC), Samsung Catalyst Fund and Dynamic Loop Capital, bringing total investment to $11 million.

We are proud to partner with Hyundai and share Hyundai’s belief that AI empowers the industry to provide greater road safety, autonomy, to better understand customers’ needs and to help broaden their experiences,” said Nir Bar-lev CEO and Co-founder of allegro.ai (photo above). “Whether a company is developing autonomous vehicles, drones, security, or other types of applications, we make it easy for them to manage their data-sets and build deep learning-based solutions while guaranteeing complete and confidential control of their data.”

HARMAN Strengthens Presence in Israel

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Following a decision to strength its presence in Israel, HARMAN International has opened a new, 46,000 square feet facility, located in Hod Hasharon near Tel Aviv, which will now serve as the headquarters for HARMAN in Israel. This three-story building will feature a Smart Car Lab to research, test and validate the company’s cybersecurity, Over-The-Air software updates technologies, and automotive cloud solutions, in real-life conditions.

The company brought together its 200 local engineers and researchers from there existing Research & Development (R&D) centers, currently based in Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon and Ramat Gan. They will now be consolidated under the new center at Hod Hasharon. HARMAN’s entrance to Israel were made un the kast 5 years by a series of acquisitions: It acquired iOnRoad, a red alert company situated in Ramat Gan; Red Bend, which enables today’s cars to be connected to the cloud and is located in Hod Hasharon; and TowerSec Automotive Cybersecurity, which was based in Kfar Saba.

HARMAN President and CEO, Dinesh C. Paliwal said during the inauguration of the new center that the industry is now preparing for the next phase of growth – connected vehicles and automated driving. “The entrepreneurial spirit and innovations taking place in Israel play an instrumental part in this strategy.” According to Oren Betzaleli, GM of HARMAN Israel, and SVP for Software Platforms in HARMAN Connected Services, “The growth rate of the operation in Israel is fast and the immediate implication is the constant hiring of new employees.”

HARMAN from Stamford, Connecticut, designs connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises, including connected car systems, audio and visual products.  It has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, following giant $8 billion acquisition.

Volkswagen and Mobileye to Deploy Autonomous EV Ride-Hailing Service in Israel, Starting 2019

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By Orna Gadel, Techtime

The Volkswagen Group, Mobileye (an Intel Company) and Champion Motors announced plans to deploy Israel’s first self-driving ride hailing service – or Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) – starting next year. The partners will establish a joint venture called “New Mobility in Israel”. While Volkswagen will provide the electric vehicles (EVs) and knowledge in user-centered mobility services,  Mobileye will provide its level-4 AV Kit. It is a turn-key, driverless solution comprised of hardware, driving policy, safety software and map data. Champion Motors, the importer of  Volkswagen  vehicles in Israel, will run the fleet operations and control center.

Together, the three companies will add the mobility platform and services, content and other MaaS tools. In a joint release, the companies said that the government of Israel has committed to support the project in three main areas: legal and regulatory support, sharing the required infrastructure and traffic data, and providing access to infrastructure as needed. The New Mobility in Israel will be Israel’s first commercial MaaS service with self-driving vehicles, but all facilitations and rulings will be applied to all other ventures that wish to operate a MaaS in Israel.

Volkswagen, Mobileye and Champion Motors will use New Mobility in Israel to serve as a global beta site for testing the Mobility-as-a-Service model using autonomous electric vehicles. The project will start in early 2019 and scale to commercialization by 2022. New Mobility in Israel will start with several dozen vehicles and plans to reach hundreds of self-driving electric vehicles in its final phase.

“We believe that self-driving electric vehicles will offer Israel and cities around the world safe, clean and emission-free mobility,” said Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen Group. Professor Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CEO and senior vice president at Intel, said: “Our service aims to intelligently and dynamically adapt to the urban mobility needs of the 21st Century, catering to the mobility-mileage demands within the city while minimizing the direct/indirect incurred societal costs – air/noise pollution, congestion and safety.”

Eyesight completed a $15 Million Growth Round

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Eyesight from Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, announced it completed a $15m growth investment round, led by Jebsen Capital, Arie Capital, Mizrahi Tefahot, among other investors. EyeSight developed a proprietary software for in-cabin sensing which requires either an Infra-Red (IR) or Time of Flight (TOF) sensor. When it is connected to IR sensor, it enables a full range of interactions using gestures to driver monitoring and driver identification. When it is connected to TOF sensor, it offers touch-free gesture interactions for infotainment control, occupancy & upper body detection.

EyeSight’s embedded software solution can be licensed separately using the costumer’s desired IR or TOF sensors. In June 2018 it has joined forces with the Chinese Soling Industrial, a Shenzhen-based Automotive Tier-1 supplier, to bring together advanced driver monitoring technology to the Chinese Automotive market. Soling has been successfully providing components to leading automobile manufacturers such as Mazda, GAC Group, Toyota and Fiat.

In-car Eyesight's gaze recognition
In-car Eyesight’s gaze recognition

Eysight is already running a mutual project with  SEAT from Spain to provide the most advanced sensing technology for the in-car environment that will detect distraction and drowsiness and take action through the car’s safety systems, and in August 2017, Jabil Inc. from Petersburg, Florida, partnered with eyeSight to develop in-car sensing product (photo above) combining Jabil’s automotive-grade optics capabilities with eyeSight’s software. The device assesses the presence of an active and aware driver and provides (HMI).