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Arezzo – July 21st 2020 – SECO SPA, a company established by Daniele Conti and Luciano Secciani in 1979, a leading high-tech manufacturer of computer miniaturization and “ready-to-use” IoT integrated systems, with shareholder Fondo Italiano Tecnologia e Crescita fund backed by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, has signed an agreement to acquire the majority shares of Ispirata S.r.l., start-up that specializes in middleware solutions and Open Source software for Data Orchestration applications in the Embedded, IoT and Industry 4.0 fields.
The structure of the transaction is a mix of both capital increase and quota acquisition for a total of 70% of Ispirata. The shareholder managers Marco Oggioni, Davide Bettio with Dario Freddi - Founder & CEO, will stay with the company and will continue, together with SECO, to manage the organization.
Ispirata is a start-up that provides integrated solutions to companies in the IoT/Embedded domains, accessible and ready to use for the optimized management of data in the field. Ispirata’s flagship product is Astarte: a data orchestration platform and Artificial Intelligence specialized for IoT. Launched in mid 2019, Astarte is a ready-to-use Open Source solution that integrates all the necessary components to exchange, analyze and orchestrate data between devices and applications, with added attention to safety, data integrity and performance. Astarte was recently included by Gartner amongst the best data orchestration solutions available in the market.
This transaction fits the SECO strategy in the completion of the technology/product portfolio in the IoT field. With the acquisition of Ispirata’s software competencies SECO will be able to make available and useable in the cloud the data gathered from the field through its edge computing systems.
“Ispirata is an innovative organization with competencies that represent a key element in the evolution of our business model – said Massimo Mauri SECO SpA’s Chief Executive Officer – EDGEHOG, our IIoT platform’s integration with Astarte, will allow us to bring to the market ready to use solutions that due to the simple and immediate data usability will help our customers in real time business decisions. Speed, in my opinion, is a relevant element in a company’s competitivity.”
“We are proud to become part of the SECO family, a state-of-the-art and solid company, with an IPO project, know-how and expertise that seamlessly complement our business – said Dario Freddi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ispirata – Our international current and future customers can count on a renewed commitment in Astarte and an even greater guarantee in the continuity of our roadmap. Additionally, thanks to SECO’s support we can expand our projects in different sectors that need, today more than ever, to adopt a technology that is not yet fully utilized.”
For the acquisition, SECO was supported by Value Track as Financial Advisor and by Deloitte for the due diligence, by the law firm Ristuccia Tufarelli & Partners and by Studio Lomarini.
SECO
SECO is an Italian group with a leading global position in the sector of embedded technology and Internet of Things (IoT). Since 1979, it has been designing and producing embedded systems – industrial computers that are integrated into a client’s machine or tool, activating its functions and permitting interaction through touch/video interfaces. SECO collaborates with a broad network of strategic suppliers in the international high-tech panorama (including Intel®, AMD, NXP, NVIDIA®, Wind, and Telenor), as well as with universities, research centers and innovative start-ups, and operates on a global scale with offices in Italy, Germany, the U.S., India and Taiwan, employing more than 380 people. The industrial sectors in which SECO products are utilized range from biomedicine to wellness, industrial automation to transportation, and it has clients that are market leaders, such as Cimbali, Esaote, Evoca, and Technogym. In 2019 SECO further expanded its reach by completing two important acquisitions. It strengthened its investments in research and development and production capabilities in China by acquiring a majority stake in Fannal Electronics CO. Ltd. In the United States it acquired 100% of InHand Electronics, based in Maryland, a leading provider of low-power rugged embedded systems and software to original equipment manufacturers of handheld, portable, Internet of Things (IoT), and wireless devices for the military/defense, industrial, medical, transportation and infotainment markets. For more information: www.seco.com
Ispirata
Ispirata is an Italian start-up in the enabling technology sector for IoT, Data Orchestration and Artificial Intelligence. Founded in 2012, it is highly tied to the Open Source culture that enabled the connection between its founders and laid the grounds for the company’s business model. Ispirata’s core business is in fact built around the Astarte Open Source platform, developed by Ispirata and deployed in commercial and non-professional use cases such as Smart Building, Smart Appliances and Smart Industry. Ispirata provides Products and Services to an international customer-base, based mostly in Silicon Valley in the United States, with “Astarte Enterprise” as a flagship product, a version of Astarte addressing companies that utilize innovative technologies to guarantee greater stability and performance, and “Astarte Cloud”, a SaaS version of Astarte (available from the second half of 2020) with an innovative business model specifically based on AI algorithm resource consumption installed from the user. Astarte has also been reported by Gartner as a leading solution for Data Orchestration and the production of algorithms for Artificial Intelligence. For more information: https://ispirata.com
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