Autobrains at a Glance

Igal Raichelgauz | Founder & CEO

Igal moved to lead Autobrains after it spun-off from Cortica, the leader of AI technology for autonomous platforms, in 2019. Igal is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Cortica, which was founded in 2007. Before founding Cortica, Igal was the CTO of a speech recognition company, LCB, and prior to that, held several technical positions at Intel. Igal started his career in an elite intelligence unit in the IDF, and later went on to be the CEO and co-founder of Figment, the first advanced messaging platform based on SMS. Igal started his Ph.D. research at the Technion in the field of cortical neural networks, but his Ph.D. was never completed; instead, Cortica was founded. Igal has received multiple technical and innovation awards and holds over 50 patents. In leading Autobrains since its establishment, Igal has become a leading voice in the automotive industry in leading the paradigm shift to self-learning AI, the huge technological leap needed to bring autonomous driving into the tangible present.

Asher Avital | CFO

Asher joined Cortica as CFO back in 2015 and later moved to serve as Autobrains CFO after the company span-off. Prior to joining Cortica, Asher was involved in couple of M&As of technology companies by giants such as Apple Inc. and bring extensive experience in financial management in multi-national environment and various types of entities. Asher competed his B.A. in Economics in the Hebrew University in 1996 and MBA studies from the Tel-Aviv University in 1999.

Adam Harel | VP R&D

Adam is leading the Automotive R&D at Autobrains , He Joined Cortica in July 2013, and moved to lead the development work in Autobrains after it was founded. Adam brings a vast knowledge and extensive experience in the field of computer vision, machine learning and Image processing.  Adam holds a Bachelor degree from the department of Biomedical Engineering of Tel Aviv University. Prior to that Adam served in an elite intelligence unit in the IDF.

Hilla Tavor | CBO

In her executive role at Autobrains, Hilla is responsible for facilitating partnerships with automakers (OEMs) and Tier-1 suppliers globally. Prior to joining Autobrains, Hilla served as VP ADAS Business Development of Mobileye and led the Advanced Development Department overseeing the full funnel of pre-nomination engagements with OEMs: from evaluation and advance-development projects, through assessment of RFQs, the composition of technical and commercial value proposition, and all the way up to the full sales cycle. In her 12+ years at Mobileye, Hilla has secured strategic wins, ensured the company’s ADAS dominance in the market, and paved the road for new markets and customers. Prior to Mobileye, Hilla worked as a software development manager at numerous high-tech companies before deciding to move to project management. Hilla holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and math from Bar Ilan University.

Amir Oz | SVP Engineering

Amir brings over 20 years of experience in managing complex technology operations, delivering products for global enterprises, and leading several successful start-ups.

Prior to joining Autobrains, Amir held VP R&D and engineering roles for companies in various industries. There he led the development of e.g. automotive driver monitoring and safety technologies for eyeSight and GreenRoad, medical ultrasound devices for GE Healthcare, and enterprise storage solutions for Infinidat.

Amir holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University and an Executive MBA from Recanati Business School, Tel Aviv University.

Joachim Langenwalter | SVP Autonomous Driving

Prior to joining Autobrains Joachim served as SVP Engineering at Stellantis where he was responsible for all SW, HW, and AI-based Engineering topics including Autonomous Driving, Cockpit, Connectivity, Connected Services, Body, On- & Off-board, and Cloud.

Joachim brings more than 25 years of automotive industry experience from various positions including VP SW at Volkswagen, 5 years as Director Automotive at NVIDIA, and 10 years each at Mentor Graphics and Synopsys as Business Unit Director.

Vered Dassa Levy | Global VP HR

Vered joined Autobrains in 2021 to lead people, growth and culture. Vered brings over 20 years of diversified global startup & corporate experience in management, security operations, people development, recruitment and culture building. She is highly experienced in fast-paced start-ups, with a high level of adaptability in rapidly changing environments.
Vered was the first employee at KAZUAR Technologies, where she played a cardinal role in building the company strategy, operations and people. Prior to that, she served for 10 years in El Al in various security management positions, she was Head of HR in a global corporation where she built the local site from zero to hundreds of employees. Vered holds a B.A. in Business Management and International Relations.

Nils Berkemeyer | VP Corporate Development

Nils joined AutoBrains to drive organizational growth via strategic investments and lead the firm’s fundraising activities. Prior to that Nils was investment partner and co-founder at Continental Ventures, the global VC unit of Continental Group, with $150m+ assets under management. After serving on AB’s board as lead investor for 2.5+ years, Nils decided to fully commit to our mission and join the team. Originally coming from classic VC, Nils offers extensive investment expertise and access to a global corporate venturing network. Nils holds a master’s degree from Cass Business School in London.

Erwan Abalain | VP Business Development Europe

Erwan Abalain joined Autobrains as VP Business Development France to develop and build relationships with French related OEMs as well as with the Tier1 community accelerating the recognition and deployment of Autobrains solutions with high volume customers.
Prior to joining Autobrains, Erwan spent 20+ years of his career at Delphi/Aptiv where he held numerous positions, mainly focused on developing the electronic business of Aptiv, from Body Controllers to ADAS sensors and centralized solutions, as well as managing the teams dedicated to the execution of the associated programs. He started his career at Renault Trucks, working in the export department and working with various countries in the CIS India and Middle East, including Israel. Erwan graduated from the Ecole Centrale Marseille engineering school, and completed the CEDEP INSEAD MBA.

Wei Li | VP, GM China

For more than 25 years, Wei has been dedicated to building successful China-focused ventures as an entrepreneur and working for multinational companies. The multi-culture life and business experience have given Wei the ability to look at things from different perspectives with a focus on the most important target.
Wei has worked for industry leaders such as Vodafone, Siemens, Nokia, and Hughes Aircraft, in senior executive positions in sales & marketing, strategy, and business management. His extensive entrepreneurship experience in China and Silicon Valley includes founding four start-ups in the Automotive and Telecommunication industries.
Wei holds an MBA from IMD in Switzerland, a master’s degree in Engineering from McGill University in Canada, and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Tsinghua University in China.

Manuel Yoon | VP of Strategy

Manuel joined Autobrains after 10+ years at consulting firm Roland Berger. He has extensive experience in management consulting for automotive OEMs, tier-1 suppliers, and tech companies globally in E/E and software with a focus on ADAS/ AD strategies. Manuel holds a BSc in Business Studies from EBS Universität and an MBA from INSEAD.

Before leaving Aptiv in July 2019, Michael was Vice President Global Product Lines at Aptiv. In this role, Michael had P&L ($3.5B) responsibility for five global product lines: Advanced Safety; Infotainment; User Experience; Connectivity & Security and; Automated Driving Systems (SaaS) for OEM customers. He led the global strategic and tactical execution for these product lines. Michael is extremely passionate about Safety and has been a major advocate in the industry over the years. Michael and his team have also been recognized by both the Automotive News PACE and EU CLEPA organizations for multiple Innovation and Collaboration awards during the past years.
Prior to his career at Aptiv, Michael worked at several automotive industry companies including Adient (formerly Johnson Controls), Maxion Wheels (formerly Hayes Lemmerz), Tenneco and General Motors.
Michael has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Kettering University and an MBA the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.
Michael currently provides part-time advisory services to clients in the automotive technology sector. His clients include: (1) AutoBrains (formerly known as CarticaAI) which is an Israel-based AI technology start-up and, (2) Ambarella (Nasdaq: AMBA), which is an AI SoC technology supplier based in Santa Clara, CA.

Amir Gal-Or has been involved with the venture capital industry for almost 30 years.
In addition to being a serial entrepreneur and founder of the Infinity Group, Mr. Gal-Or founded Imed Infinity Medical – Limited Partnership (TLV: IMED) and today serves as the Chairman of the Investment Committee, is the honorary president of the Israel Chamber of Commerce in China and is an experienced combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
Mr. Gal-Or holds a BSc in economics and business management from the University of Haifa, an MBA from Tel Aviv University, and is a graduate of Harvard University’s Private Equity and Venture Capital program

Former Senior Vice President and General Manager, Series Production at Mobileye.

Under the leadership of Uri Yacovy, Mobileye’s Series Production unit delivered advance driving assist and autonomy level 3 systems to customers. His organization was responsible for meeting OEM and Tier-1 feature requirements and product hardware and software integration. In this role, Yacovy led multiple teams for product development, program execution, and functional safety, and oversaw programs of a $4B total expected revenue over lifetime.
Yacovy joined Mobileye in 2006 and led project software development for Mobileye’s early generation System-on-Chip. Later on, Yacovy managed some of the most innovating series production programs at Mobileye, including the 3rd and 4th generation products.
Yacovy holds an MBA from INSEAD Business School, M.A. in Philosophy of Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and B.A. in Management and Computer Science.