My (limited) understanding of the history:
I’m not that deep into researching Seeing Machines. I can see that their development hasn’t been that great:
My own estimates for the reason:
- Earlier strategy didn’t succeed. Not enought HW agnosticism compared to competitors. Xilinx chips aren’t preferred enough widely by OEMS.
- Top management was changed due to this.
- They negotiated a deal with Qualcomm to have “fast access” to ~20OEMS. Most likely the terms of this deal are in favor to Qualcomm.
Here I have to point out that QC is most likely working with all HW agnostic Tier2 DMS providers. Smart was their new partner at CES2019:
One thing is that I don’t have that positive view of Seeing’s management… Like here they are giving a very questionable statement about industry analysts knowledge. Not good.
P. McGlone:
Redeye analyst covering Smart Eye. I have read his reports and he has no idea what he is talking about. He really doesn’t understand how everything works in the OEM industry.
Source:
Also some bad feedback from former employees. This is in contradiction to what I have learned from SmartEye.
September 2020:
“Outdated technology, desperately trying to pretend it is the world leader. Terrible management who seem like they are just attempting to cash in before the company runs out of money. The entire business plan is built around hope, even though that hasn’t worked for the last 10 years.”
Source:
Opportunity:
Now the situation is very interesting. It’s an interesting tought that by having both SEYE and SEE in your portfolio you could have maybe 80-90% of the DMS market.
I’m not expecting SEE to success very well in upcoming “DMS procurements” but it’s possible that SEE has fast access to Qualcomm integrated vehicles.
If the DMS market advances quickly in 2021-2024 most likely you wouldn’t have to wait 4 years and still be at 0% return as those that bought in 2016… very interesting.
However current pricing does not seem that cheap in terms of 2023 estimates (P/E clearly over 40, EV/EBITDA over 30). But there is quite a leap in 2024 estimates.
Please be free to comment 