AutoBrains

From Cartica AI to AutoBrains: a spin-off with a new name

The company known today as AutoBrains was founded in 2018 under the name Cartica AI, as the technology spin-off of Cortica, an older Israeli company that developed a brain-inspired computer vision approach (Cortica has its own entry). In September 2019 Cartica AI raised a Series B in which Toyota AI Ventures, BMW i Ventures and Continental took part for the first time, alongside the Israeli investor OurCrowd. These are the same big names in the auto industry that continue to back the company today, under its current name.

Thinking AI: learning without massive manual labeling

The method, which the company calls Thinking AI, is based on the learning principles developed by Cortica: pattern recognition and self-learning from driving data, without needing huge amounts of manually labeled data as required by more common deep learning approaches. The company's products include Smart Camera, for meeting regulatory requirements for ADAS systems, and Air2Road, a technology that compares aerial images with ground images to locate the vehicle to within centimeters, without full dependence on GPS. More than 300 patents are also registered around this technology.

Funding and commercial partnerships

So far AutoBrains has raised more than $140 million, from investors including Temasek, Continental, BMW and Knorr-Bremse. In February 2024 the company also opened another office in Munich, Germany, the heart of the European auto industry. Notable commercial partnerships include winning an ADAS project in the Chinese market, a collaboration with the Vietnamese carmaker VinFast, and a pilot with Uber for a robotaxi service in Munich, based on the Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion platform. The pilot stands out because it is located in Europe, where regulation of autonomous driving is generally considered stricter.

One of the few companies taking on Mobileye

AutoBrains is one of the few Israeli companies trying to compete directly with Mobileye in the field of driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, with an approach it declares to be technologically different. Its relationship with Cortica illustrates a business model that is becoming more common in the AI world: a technology company spins off a specific application into an independent company with its own team, funding and brand identity, so it can focus on one market without dragging along the full complexity of the underlying technology.