Newfoundland-based startup InspectAR has been acquired by Silicon Valley-based electronic design automation (EDA) software company Cadence Design Systems. The purchase price of the acquisition was not disclosed.
“We couldn’t be more excited for this new chapter of growth and vision.”
InspectAR uses augmented reality to map out complicated electronics, labelling a circuit board’s schematics on a screen in real-time. Following the deal, InspectAR’s team will continue to operate independently from its headquarters in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
“We’ve only gotten this far with the support of our families, friends, service providers, employees, and investors,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “Today, Cadence joins this group, and we couldn’t be more excited for this new chapter of growth and vision.”
Founded in 2018, InspectAR was created out of Memorial University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship with a goal of eliminating the inefficiencies and inconveniences experienced when developing electronics hardware. The startup’s founding team includes CEO Mihir Shah, COO Nick Warren, CTO Darryl Day, CPO Liam Cadigan, and lead software developer Matt Noseworthy, all engineering graduates from Memorial University.
The startup raised $850,000 in January from Royal Circuit Solutions and Advanced Assembly, two hardware manufacturers that are based in the United States.
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Since launching, InspectAR claims it has garnered thousands of users and has partnered with companies such as CrowdSupply, a hardware crowdfunding company, and electronic components distributor Digit-Key to give users access to various sponsored projects on the InspectAR platform.
Cadence Design is a multinational electronic design automation software and engineering services company based in San Jose, Calif. InspectAR already has operations near the Valley, with its second office located in the Autodesk Technology Center residency program in San Francisco.
“We now have far more resources to achieve our goals, and a far broader reach to get valuable insight from customers working in every part of the hardware sphere,” InspectAR said, adding that it plans to keep its platform vendor-agnostic, and plans to add additional support for EDA software and lab tools to its platform.
Image source Unsplash. Photo by Johannes Plenio.