Acquisitions · Spatial AI software (robotics, self-driving)
Kudan buys spatial AI developer Artisense in steps for about ¥2.5 billion
- Buyer
- Kudan (Tokyo)
- Target
- Artisense, California (research team in Munich, Germany)
- Value
- About ¥2.47B in total (about $22M), paid in three steps
- Status
- First 12% bought January 29, 2020; full ownership completed December 10, 2021.
- Date
- 2020-01-27
Kudan, a Tokyo developer of artificial perception software, agreed to buy Artisense in three steps: 12% in January 2020, up to 38% in June 2020 and the rest later. The payments came to about ¥2.47 billion in total when the purchase finished in December 2021. Artisense is a US company co-founded in 2016 by Daniel Cremers, a Technical University of Munich professor known for self-driving research.
Why it matters
The deal gave Kudan a well-known research team in location mapping for robots, drones and cars, an area where software from a few specialists sits inside many machines.
How it was paid
Kudan paid about ¥218 million for the first stake in January 2020, about ¥472 million for the second in June 2020, and about ¥1.78 billion for the rest in December 2021. Kudan also set up a plan to pay part of the price in new Kudan shares issued to Artisense's shareholders.
An early-stage target
Artisense had sales of only about ¥5 million and an operating loss of about ¥212 million when the deal began. Kudan's software works out where a device is and maps its surroundings, for uses from self-driving cars and robots to drones and augmented reality.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
