indie Semiconductor declared that it has finalized a deal to acquire emotion3D GmbH, a Vienna, Austria-based enterprise that specializes in developing sophisticated perception algorithms and software for automated driving, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and in-cabin sensors. McKinsey estimates that the automotive software market will be worth $83 billion in 2030 (automotive semiconductors will be worth $135 billion), with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 9% from 2019 to 2023.
More than half of this amount will come from ADAS and autonomous driving software, which presents a substantial opportunity for automotive semiconductors to generate more revenue.
Automakers are increasingly using multi-modal sensing, such as cameras and radars, to meet these expanding safety needs as worldwide automotive regulations and new automobile assessment programs develop to make driving and roadways safer for all users.
In order to read a vehicle’s internal and exterior environmental context and categorize and detect potential risks for subsequent safety measures like autonomous braking or driver and occupant warnings, the data produced by these sensors must be analyzed by software perception algorithms.
With successful implementations for in-cabin sensing applications including driver and occupant monitoring (DMS/OMS) with leading worldwide Tier 1 system integrators and OEMs, emotion3D has created an AI-based perception solution for embedded automotive vision and radar sensing.
Furthermore, further development and client testing are already underway for emotion3D’s enhanced perception solutions for exterior sensing applications including camera-radar sensor fusion and nocturnal forward vision.
The robustness of emotion3D’s machine learning-based approach to changing client use cases is one of its main differentiators. This is accomplished using a low compute multi-task neural network architecture in conjunction with a significant amount of simulation and synthetic data during model building and testing.
The company’s strong in-house capabilities in synthetic data generation significantly reduce the need for real-world data, enabling faster and more cost-efficient development, reliable retraining of neural networks, and high flexibility in addressing custom requirements.
Leadership Comments
“Automakers are increasingly demanding co-optimized hardware-software solutions for ADAS applications,” said Mark Tyndall, EVP of Corporate Development and IR at indie. “Already engaged with top global Tier 1 manufacturers and OEMs, emotion3D is supplying an innovative AI-based perception approach that is ideally suited to embedded ADAS sensing, extensible to vision, radar and sensor fusion applications. Supplying software alongside our chip offering will bring significant value-add to indie’s vision and radar portfolio and high gross margin revenue, positioning indie to maximally benefit from the substantial ADAS market opportunity.”
“We are incredibly excited to join forces with indie,” said Dr. Florian Seitner, CEO and co-founder of emotion3D. “Our software technology is uniquely suited to indie’s embedded vision and radar hardware solutions, and access to in-house silicon will help accelerate our ambitious multi-sensor roadmap. Our company’s founding was based upon the global safety initiative Vision Zero, which aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. The combination of our software and indie’s hardware solutions will help us to take a step closer to this important long-term industry aspiration.”
indie will pay $20 million in cash at closing, in addition to an aggregate of up to $10 million performance based earnouts that will be payable if certain revenue targets are exceeded over a post-closing period ending in February 2027.
The closing is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory clearance. It is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2025, and be immediately accretive.
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