WATCH: Intel Buying Mobileye For $15.3 Billion in Biggest Ever Deal in Israeli High-tech

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Ziv Aviram, President and CEO of Mobileye, demonstrates the driverless car to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (3R) and former US president Barack Obama (2R) during an exhibition of technological innovation at the Israel Museum, as Amnon Shashua (R), Mobileye‘s co-founder and chief technology officer, looks on, in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash90)

 

Jerusalem-based Mobibileye, was sold Monday to Intel for a whopping $15.3 billion, making it the highest price for a technology company in Israeli history.

Mobileyes co-founder, president and CEO, Ziv Aviram told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that  Mobibileye will stay in Israel. Mobileye would responsibility internationally, on behalf of Intel, for the creation of a driverless car.

Benjamin Netanyahu praised Mobileye earlier today “Israeli genius, Israeli pride.”

“This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholders, the automotive industry and consumers,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO.

“Intel provides critical foundational technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car’s path and making real-time driving decisions. Mobileye brings the industry’s best automotive-grade computer vision and strong momentum with automakers and suppliers. Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers.”

“We expect the growth towards autonomous driving to be transformative. It will provide consumers with safer, more flexible, and less costly transportation options, and provide incremental business model opportunities for our automaker customers,” said Mr. Ziv Aviram, Mobileye’s CEO.

“By pooling together our infrastructure and resources, we can enhance and accelerate our combined know-how in the areas of mapping, virtual driving, simulators, development tool chains, hardware, data centers and high-performance computing platforms. Together, we will provide an attractive value proposition for the automotive industry.”

Mike Ramsey, an analyst with technology researcher Gartner, explained to Bloomberg News why Intel paid such a high premium for Mobileeye. “They’re paying a huge premium in order to catch up, to get into the front of the line, rather than attempt to build from scratch.” =

See Full Mike Ramsey Interview on this mega deal above.

Intel will pay almost $64 per share in cash for Mobileye, according to a statement Monday from both companies.

Following the buyout announcement, Mobileye co-founders Amnon Shashua and Aviram sought to reassure the company’s employees, stating that they would continue to control Mobileye’s daily operations and that “there is much to learn from Intel’s experience, culture, expertise and resources in many fields tangential to our own and we plan to embrace this opportunity to learn and tap into their knowledge.”

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