MIDAS Ireland member, Decawave has been bought by California-based Qorvo.
Decawave was founded in Ireland in 2007 to develop ICs capable of identifying the specific location of any object, person or thing with centimetre-precise accuracy.
Ciaran Connell, co-founder and CEO of Decawave, has described the company’s technology as GPS for use indoors.
Decawave said today’s deal will advance market penetration of Impulse-radio ultra wideband (IR-UWB) and enable broad global adoption of this “transformational technology”.
It said that IR-UWB technology is on the verge of becoming the next essential component technology, like GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth before it and is already widely used in smartphones and cars.
The company’s CEO Ciaran Connell said Decawave had created an incredibly unique technology.
“But we understand that to embrace the opportunity in front of us, we will need greater resources to execute at scale, accelerate our innovation and product launches and to continue to support our growing customer base with the same level of service,” Mr Connell said.
“Joining forces with Qorvo’s leading expertise is for Decawave a perfect combination to scale and further accelerate the adoption of IR-UWB,” he added.
Decawave co-founder Michael McLaughlin said that from proving a new technology, to building new markets and to today joining a Tier 1 semiconductor company, the past 12 years have been a challenging and fantastic journey for the company.
“None of this would have been possible without the dedication and passion of Decawave employees as well as the constant support from our lead investor Atlantic Bridge, Act Venture Capital, Summit Bridge (backed by Ireland Strategic Investment Fund), Enterprise Ireland and our business angels,” Mr McLaughlin added.
Eric Creviston, President of Qorvo Mobile Products, said the deal for Decawave will enhance Qorvo’s product and technology leadership while expanding new opportunities in mobile, automotive and Internet of Things.
“We look forward to building on the groundbreaking work that Decawave has done and helping to drive new applications and businesses using their unique UWB capability,” he added.
