What They Say
Valens, the Israeli fabless chip company behind the HDBaseT technology, sent us a mail to say that it is going public using a ‘SPAC’, PTK Acquisition Corp (PTH), and listed on the NYSE under the symbol “PTK.U”. The deal is due to close in Q3 and Valens will be listed under the symbol “VLN”.
Separately, the deal is reported to value the firm at $1.1 billion. The proceeds will be $240 million, $115 million from the SPAC and $125 million in case from an investment round that included Mediatek.
The HDBaseT technology is set to form the basis of the MIPI A-PHY physical layer connections in automotive designs.
What We Think
I always liked the idea of HDBaseT and early on gave a talk at IBC about the potential for the technology. Valens hoped to get significant wins in consumer electronics devices which would have delivered high volume, but was unsuccessful there. As a result, it had to find revenues where it could and went into the professional AV market That limited volumes, revenues and meant relatively high chip prices, which limited the adoption at times. . It had some trouble with compatibility between the chips from different suppliers, but eventually got a certification programme going. Still, the company saw the opportunity in automotive and we have reported on its developments in that area since the 2015 Electronic Displays/Embedded World event in Nurnberg. (16 Valens Pushes HDBaseT into Industrial PCs – Autos Next?
The ability to transmit a range of data and graphics as well as power over a single twisted pair is attractive to automakers and Valens is already supplying Mercedes. (BR)
When Valens first promoted automotive to us in 2015. Image:Meko
