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The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t put the brakes on Merger Monday this week, as two large chip makers announced deals Monday that shore up holdings from previous acquisitions.
On Monday, Intel Corp. INTC, +0.90% said it was buying mobility app Moovit for $900 million, three years after it acquired Mobileye for $15.3 billion. With the addition of Moovit, Intel hopes to build out Mobileye as a “complete mobility provider” with a forecast market of $160 billion by 2030.
Moovit offers users information on public transit and other transportation options to get around, including shared scooter and bike networks. Prior to the acquisition, Moovit had raised $131.5 million in funding, including an investment from Intel Capital, according to Crunchbase.
“With this acquisition, Mobileye will be able to use Moovit’s large proprietary transportation dataset to optimize predictive technologies based on customer demand and traffic patterns, as well as tap into Moovit’s transit data repository of more than 7,500 key transit agencies and operators, and improve the consumer experience for more than 800 million users worldwide,” Intel said in a statement.
Also on Monday, Nvidia Corp. NVDA, +3.00% said it was acquiring Cumulus Networks for an undisclosed amount. The announced acquisition follows the recent closing of Nvidia’s $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd., which in mid-April received antitrust approval from Chinese regulators. Nvidia said that its Mellanox Spectrum switches already ship with Cumulus software.
Cumulus Networks had received $134 million in funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, according to Crunchbase. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company makes Linux-based operating systems for network hardware that can be easily scaled for cloud-computing applications.
“Nvidia’s approach to creating both the hardware and software for accelerated computing expands deeper into networking software with Cumulus,” Nividia said in a statement. “The ability to innovate across the entire technology stack will help us deliver performance at scale for the accelerated, software-defined data center.”
Intel’s acquisition also underscores the U.S. tech sector’s recent focus on Israel as a source of intellectual property. In December, Intel acquired Caesarea, Israel-based AI chip company Habana Labs for about $2 billion. Moovit is based in Ness Ziona, Israel, and Mobileye is based in Jerusalem. Mellanox was headquartered in Yokneam, Israel.
Intel shares slipped 0.2% in recent activity, while Nvidia shares rose 2.4%. In comparison, the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX, +1.02% declined 0.1%, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.42% rose 0.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +1.22% gained 0.8%.
