News: Optoelectronics
19 September 2023
Automotive semiconductor firm indie acquires EXALOS
Automotive semiconductor and software platform provider indie Semiconductor Inc of Aliso Viejo, CA, USA has acquired privately held EXALOS AG of Zürich, Switzerland, which was founded in 2003 and designs and manufactures light sources based on superluminescent light-emitting diodes (SLEDs) and external-cavity tunable lasers for optical coherence tomography and fiber-optic gyroscopes.
Among several products developed and launched for demanding applications, EXALOS’ field-proven SLEDs for fiber optic gyroscope and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) in particular are backed by 59 global patents and complement indie’s laser and silicon photonics products, creating a portfolio targeting rapidly emerging autotech applications.
“EXALOS’ differentiated solutions immediately expand indie’s ADAS [advanced driver assistance systems] and User Experience product and technology offering to our global tier-one and automotive OEM customer base,” says indie’s co-founder & CEO Donald McClymont. “Specifically, indie can now leverage EXALOS’ core superluminescent LED, and SOA technologies to enable head-up display (HUD), high-brightness visible lighting and inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based navigational applications and, importantly, to extend our frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) portfolio. We are gaining a well-established team of 17 world-class engineers, including the industry’s leading expertise in bright light sources based on a proprietary gallium nitride process. At a higher level, our acquisition of EXALOS represents another step in our quest to build a broadline autotech powerhouse,” he adds.
“Given indie’s global sales channels and demonstrated scalability, I am confident that together we can take our business to the next level, capitalizing on clear product synergies between us and extending our customer reach while preserving the EXALOS innovation engine,” says EXALOS’ CEO & founder Christian Velez.
Subject to the terms and conditions of the definitive agreement, indie paid about $45m to EXALOS equity holders, consisting of 6.6 million indie Class A common shares. In addition, if certain revenue-based performance targets are exceeded over a 24-month post-closing period, there is an opportunity for such holders to earn up to $20m more in cash or indie Class A common shares, at indie’s election.
The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both indie and EXALOS. The acquisition is expected to be financially neutral in 2023 and accretive to indie’s 2024 results.
