Amnon Shashua to pocket $341 million from Mobileye’s $900 million Mentee deal
The robotics acquisition turns a little over $10 million of personal investment into a lucrative payout.
Amnon Shashua emerges as the central beneficiary of Mobileye’s $900 million acquisition of Mentee Robotics, a four-year-old startup he founded and chaired that has no reported revenue.
Under the terms of the deal, Mobileye will pay $612 million in cash and issue 26.2 million shares to acquire Mentee, valuing the company at close to $1 billion. Shashua, who serves simultaneously as Mentee’s chairman, Mobileye’s CEO and a member of its board, holds 37.8% of Mentee’s shares. His stake is worth approximately $341 million, an almost pure profit for someone who invested a little more than $10 million in the company.
The transaction was approved by Intel’s board of directors, which controls roughly 85% of Mobileye. Shashua recused himself from the vote, a procedural safeguard reflecting the unusually tight overlap between buyer and seller. Mobileye is currently traded on Wall Street at a market capitalization of around $10 billion, and Shashua personally owns about 1% of its shares.
Mentee has raised about $38 million over the company’s lifetime, with Ahren Innovation Capital holding 14.5% of Mentee. After deducting its investment, the fund is expected to record a profit of roughly $118 million. Israel’s 10D fund, the second-largest investor, holds about 3.5% after investing approximately $6 million and will receive a return estimated at five times its original outlay.
Prof. Shai Shalev-Shwartz, Mentee co-founder and Shashua’s longtime partner, holds roughly 13% of the company and is set to receive about $118 million. Shalev-Shwartz also serves as Mobileye’s chief technology officer, reinforcing the degree to which the transaction consolidates value among a small circle of senior executives.
Employees are also set to benefit. According to the deal structure, retention bonuses totaling $50 million and options worth tens of millions of dollars will be distributed among staff. Among the beneficiaries are Shashua’s son and son-in-law, both of whom work at Mentee.
