Valens, designer of HD content transmission chips, raises $60M from Israel Growth Partners, Samsung, MediaTek, others to expand into auto industry
Tali Tsipori / Globes Online :
Context & Ripple Effects
Valens' move into cars follows a playbook Samsung and MediaTek already ran in Israeli imaging: three months earlier the same two investors joined Foxconn in backing dual-camera startup Corephotonics' $15M round, treating minority stakes in Israeli chip designers as cheap optionality on next-generation device categories.
The auto push also lands in a country that was becoming an automotive-silicon hub — Intel had just doubled down on Mobileye R&D locally (another $600M plus a $10B fab) — so Valens is raising into an ecosystem where carmakers and their suppliers actively scout.
First-order effects
- Valens gains $60M and, more importantly, two strategic investors whose silicon ships in phones, TVs, and increasingly vehicles — a distribution path for its HD transmission chips beyond its existing markets.
- Samsung and MediaTek each secure early exposure to in-vehicle connectivity without building the capability in-house.
Second-order effects
- Strategic money from component giants pressures dedicated automotive-connectivity startups to find their own anchor backers or OEM design wins — a gap Aviva Links moved to fill four years later with a founder-led $26.5M Series A for low-latency car data-sharing chips.
- Israel Growth Partners' lead marks local growth capital competing with strategics for the best Israeli semiconductor deals, alongside later large rounds like Hailo's $136M Series C.
Third-order effects
- If consumer chip vendors keep buying stakes rather than developing in-house, Israel's auto-semiconductor cluster consolidates around funded specialists feeding global platforms — the pattern visible from Valens through sensor maker TriEye's Intel Capital-led round to Hailo.
- Automotive content transmission becomes a contested layer between phone-chip incumbents and purpose-built startups, with automakers ultimately choosing between integrated supplier stacks and best-of-breed links.
The trend: Consumer chip giants are using minority investments in Israeli semiconductor startups to buy their way into the connected car, turning the country into a specialist supplier base for vehicle electronics.