Israeli startup Autotalks has been acquired by US semiconductor giant Qualcomm’s Qualcomm Technologies. Inc. unit. This is the second time that the two companies have reached a deal. The first time, the deal fell through over a year ago, because of regulatory difficulties in the US. Changes in the regulatory environment apparently brought the parties back to the deal, but at a different price.
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Contrary to reports in the media describing a deal "in the hundreds of millions of dollars," "Globes" has learned that the deal price is $80-90 million only. This is substantially less that the $350 million price in the original deal.
The authorities in the US investigated the deal, which served as a bargaining card for Qualcomm to negotiate a lower price. According to PitchBook, $110 million were invested in Autotalks over seventeen years.
Autotalks is a developer of V2X (vehicle to everything) systems that facilitate communications between a vehicle and its surroundings.
The investors in the company will not see a large return. Among them are active funds such as Vintage, and funds that are no longer active, such as Magma and Gemini.
The company also has several international investors, such Japanese company Mitsui, Hyundai and Samsung of South Korea, and some Saudi and Chinese money through Liberty Capital, headed by Steven Mnuchin, who was US Secretary of the Treasury in President Donald Trump’s first administration, and through Foxconn Interconnect Technology Limited (FIT). The Phoenix Holdings and Delek Automotive Systems were also mentioned in the past as investors in the company.
Despite the upset of the cancellation of the previous acquisition deal, Autotalks has more or less maintained the size of its workforce. It currently has about 120 employees, 100 of them in its development center in Kfar Netter. As far as is known, all the employees will join Qualcomm.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on June 5, 2025.
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