Telescope Advisory: Knorr-Bremse Enters AI Software Market for Autonomous Driving with a Strategic Investment in Tel Aviv Based AI Venture

As an integral part of the transformation of mobility and the innovation within the automotive landscape, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), as well as Autonomous Driving (AD), are hot topics for every OEM and the whole supplier industry. By integrating such systems both passenger and commercial vehicles get smarter, thus, market adoption increases year-over-year.But central questions remain unanswered, such as will AD be available for everyone and, first and foremost, when can we expect to experience it in our everyday lives?

Even though experiencing the implementation of the highest level AD technology may yet be some years away, many companies, both OEMs and suppliers, are investing in this growing market to be prepared with market-ready solutions and business models once the regulatory framework for AD is set. And so does Knorr-Bremse!

Knorr-Bremse, the global market leader in braking systems and supplier of other systems for rail and commercial vehicles, has invested approximately USD 25 million in Israeli start-up AutoBrains in return for a company share of about 5 percent. AutoBrains offers video-based object recognition to enable system solutions for ADAS and AD.

AutoBrains’ self-learning, unsupervised artificial intelligence (AI) successfully interprets video data and navigates safely in all – even unusual – driving situations and special cases where previous object recognition was less reliable. This increases road safety accelerates the deployment of ADAS and lays the foundation for the application of AutoBrains’ technology in AD. It also increases the accessibility of ADAS in all market segments at a time when regulations are making more driver assistance functions necessary in commercial vehicles.

“I congratulate the Knorr-Bremse and AutoBrains team on this strategic investment and future partnership. Undoubtedly, the market position of Knorr-Bremse with its product offering and the innovative video perception software solution of AutoBrains are a perfect strategic fit, which helps Knorr-Bremse to define new security standards for ADAS and AD in the space of commercial vehicles”, – says Simon Fischer, Managing Partner at Telescope.

We are looking forward to the future of this promising cooperation.Learn more about Telescope Advisory Partners and how we can help you.

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Transaction Team