Press Releases
Press Release / April 02, 2020
Strategic Investment of NXP in Kalray
€8 million equity investment to strengthen partnership to co-develop, jointly promote and deploy safe autonomous driving solutions on the market
Grenoble – France, April 2, 2020 – Kalray (Euronext Growth Paris : ALKAL – the “Company”), a pioneer in processors for new intelligent systems, today announces a strategic investment from NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) for €8 million (approximately US$9 million), to enable the companies to develop together safe, reliable and scalable solutions for autonomous driving, combining NXP Automotive solutions and Kalray MPPA® (Massively Parallel Processor Array) Intelligent Processors.
STRATEGIC NATURE OF THE TRANSACTION
This transaction will strengthen the partnership between NXP and Kalray that has been announced one year ago at CES 2019 which is targeting the development and deployment of a L2 (Partial Driving Automation) to L5 (Full Vehicle Automation) common hardware and software platform, for a safe, reliable and scalable autonomous driving solutions.
The funds raised will be used to both finance Kalray’s resources and investments required by the implementation of the strategic partnership with NXP, and fund Kalray’s roadmap in support of Kalray’s automotive and embedded strategy.
NXP and Kalray intend to bring an integrated, scalable solution to the automotive market, including CPU processing, neural network computing, functional safety capabilities, and an optimized tool chain – together providing the necessary requirements for next-generation ADAS and automated driving systems. The partners will also respond together to business opportunities and NXP will support Kalray in term of sales, marketing, automotive expertise and global technical support.
The next generation of the NXP BlueBox autonomous driving reference platform with NXP’s S32 family of safe automotive processors and automotive grade Layerscape® processors is set to integrate Kalray’s MPPA© Intelligent Processors and provide it to both automotive customers and NXP BlueBox eco-system.
“Delivering a platform for autonomous driving, integrating the required AI and safe compute performance, requires high levels of collaboration,” said Henri Ardevol, senior vice president and general manager Automotive Processing at NXP. “Kalray’s scalable, open platform and heritage in the industry is a complement to NXP’s deep experience, dedication to safety and portfolio in the automotive space. We are very happy to combine our expertise with Kalray to help our customers deliver increasingly automated vehicles.”
“We are honored to announce NXP is now one of our strategic investors”, said Éric Baissus, CEO, Kalray. “NXP is one of the most well-established and expert company in the automotive semi-conductor industry. This investment will further strengthen the collaboration of our teams and participate to the funding of our automotive roadmap. Together, I am convinced we have a unique solution to provide to the market for reliable autonomous driving, combining performance, openness and functional safety needs.”
About NXP Semiconductors
NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) enables secure connections for a smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better, and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the automotive, industrial & IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has approximately 30,000 employees in more than 30 countries and posted revenue of $8.88 billion in 2019. Find out more at www.nxp.com
About Kalray
Kalray (Euronext Growth Paris – FR0010722819 – ALKAL) is the pioneer in processors for new intelligent systems. A genuine technological breakthrough, “intelligent” processors are able to intelligently analyze a vast quantity of data on the fly and to make decisions and interact in real time with the outside world. These intelligent processors will be largely deployed in fast-growing sectors such as new-generation networks (intelligent data centers) and autonomous vehicles, as well as in healthcare equipment, drones and robots. Kalray’s offering spans both processors and global solutions (electronic boards and software). Created in 2008 as a spin-off of CEA (“Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique”, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), Kalray addresses a broad spectrum of customers including server manufacturers, intelligent system integrators and consumer product manufacturers such as car makers. Read more at: www.kalrayinc.com
