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A $1 Billion Valuation for Mobileye Founders' Latest Venture

A $1 Billion Valuation for Mobileye Founders' Latest Venture

(Bloomberg) -- OrCam, a company developing technology for the visually impaired, has been valued at $1 billion after a $30.4 million round of funding.

The Israeli company was created by the founders of Mobileye NV, a maker of autonomous vehicle technology, which Intel Corp. acquired last year for about $15 billion.

A $1 Billion Valuation for Mobileye Founders' Latest Venture

OrCam Technologies Ltd. produces a device that’s attached to a pair of eyeglasses and can read the text of a book aloud, or announce the names of friends and family in a room in 12 languages. The current model costs about $4,500 in the U.S., comparable to the price of mid-range hearing aids. Thousands have been sold, the company said.

The OrCam unit, which weighs less than an ounce, is a front-facing camera with a small speaker positioned toward the wearer’s ear, and communicates visual information in real-time without any need for network connectivity.

Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. and Meitav Dash Provident Funds and Pension Ltd. led the financing round, which follows the $41 million raised in 2017 at which time the company was valued at $600 million. Intel’s venture arm invested $6 million in 2014 but has not participated in following rounds.

The capital raised will be used for research, co-founder Ziv Aviram said in a statement. Together with Amnon Shashua, Aviram launched OrCam while running Mobileye. Aviram left to focus on OrCam, while Shashua currently serves as Mobileye’s CEO, as well as chairman and chief technology officer at OrCam.

According to the World Health Organization, 253 million people, more than 3 percent of the world’s population, are blind or visually impaired.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon

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