FotoNation completes management buyout, returning company founders to leadership

Imaging technology leader FotoNation has done now for the third time what other companies can’t do once: Complete a management buyout by the founders. FotoNation is a leading provider of ultralow-power, high-efficiency computer vision AI solutions, announced its founders have completed a management buyout of the company’s chip-level hardware, firmware, and imaging business. Terms weren’t disclosed. FotoNation LTD is an Irish corporation headquartered in Galway, Ireland, with a second engineering office in Brasov, Romania, and business development offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Japan.

Petronel Bigioi, its current Chief Executive Officer; Sumat Mehra, its Chief Business Officer; and Eran Steinberg, Chairman of the Board, will once again lead FotoNation; each of these individuals had a key leadership role in the company in the past.

As a globally recognized pioneer of in-device computational imaging solutions, FotoNation has a track record of more than 1,000 granted patents and dozens of design wins. Its unique combination of hardware, firmware, and software solutions is embedded in over 3.6 billion devices worldwide, the company said.

FotoNation was acquired in 2008 by Tessera Inc., which later became Xperi Corp. In December 2023, Tobii announced plans to acquire FotoNation – primarily for its automotive vision technology – for $45 million.

Going forward, FotoNation is focused on developing the third generation of its image processing core, optimized for edge devices requiring ultra-low power, high bandwidth, and AI-based signal processing. A supporting AI compiler and software stack complete this unique offering, delivering sustainable AI inference capabilities to all sensing devices, the company said.

“We are targeting surveillance, IP cameras, drones, action cameras, and mobile devices. Any market requiring high-quality low-power imaging, sensing, or signal processing is within our reach,” said Mehra. “We are leveraging the long-term relationships with key players and the established market credibility emerging from seeding billions of devices.”

“FotoNation’s technology is based on strong intellectual property, built on sound tried-and-tested solutions. We plan to migrate from IP cores towards Chiplets, commoditizing imaging and sensor fusion for any SoC makers,” said Bigioi. “We are fortunate to have such an experienced, innovative, and committed team as the FotoNation family.”

“Our vision is to provide strategic, widely addressable chip-level imaging and sensing solutions addressing the near- and long-term needs of Edge AI,” said Steinberg. “It is rare in business that one gets an opportunity to reunite such a dream team for the third time. We expect this hat-trick buyout to result in a phenomenal breakthrough vision technology and exponential market growth with significant ROI”.