Semtech Corp. has agreed to acquire Sierra Wireless Inc. to expand its portfolio of connectivity solutions for the internet of things (IoT) market.
The $1.2 billion transaction will bring together two important technologies for the future of IoT: Long range (LoRa) and cellular connectivity. The chip-to-cloud platform will use Sierra Wireless’ cellular capabilities across its modules, gateways and managed connectivity with Semtech’s LoRa-enabled end nodes for new IoT use cases, Semtech said.
The cloud services from both companies will include enhanced security, provisioning, device management and geolocation capabilities for power optimized IoT applications. These cloud-based services are expected to add more than $100 million of high-margin IoT cloud services to Semtech’s revenue immediately.
Semtech has been rapidly expanding its LoRa wide area network (WAN) with the company over the past few years providing wireless to Amazon Sidewalk, a neighborhood crowd-sourced wireless network, brought smart connectivity to Cook Islands, remote monitoring of livestock and enabling low Earth orbit satellites for asset tracking.
“We believe the next era of technology growth is the full digitization of our industrial world — the Internet of Everything,” said Mohan Maheswaran, president and CEO of Semtech. “Our vision is to build a simple, horizontal platform with the goal of accelerating this transformation and to bring about a smarter and more sustainable planet.
Semtech said the deal will allow the combined company to be positioned in high growth segments such as:
- Supply chain, logistics and asset management
- Utilities (water, gas and electric metering)
- Smart cites including air quality monitoring and public safety
- Smart agriculture and species protection
