Irish IoT antenna firm Taoglas has bought US competitor ThinkWireless for an undisclosed fee. The deal will help the Wexford firm expand sales in the commercial vehicle industry, it said.
ThinkWireless, headquartered in Florida, specialises in combination antenna systems incorporating two or more frequency bands, including those for SiriusXM satellite radio, GPS, AM/FM, weather band, DAB, HDTV, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LTE. Its antenna systems are used in the commercial trucking, bus, and motorcycle industries, where satellite, AM/FM radio, weather band, and GNSS are considered crucial.
Taoglas makes radio antennas for the broad IoT sector, including for IoT devices and vehicles, variously incorporating LTE, Wi-Fi, GNSS, DSRC, NFC, LORA/LPWA, NB-IoT, and LTE-M, with a roadmap to 5G. It will retain the ThinkWireless brand, it said, “as a Taoglas company”.
The US firm’s facilities will become its ninth design and development centre globally, and the third in the US, alongside centres in San Diego and Minneapolis. Its other test centres are in Ireland, Germany, Taiwan, and China; its in-house manufacturing is carried out in Taiwan and the US.
The company remains in acquisition mode, according to the company’s co-chief executive, Ronan Quinlan. “As we continue to explore potential acquisitions to strengthen the Taoglas brand, we were struck by how similar ThinkWireless’ approach to antenna design and manufacturing is to our own commitment to excellence,” he said.
“This is a great acquisition as we look to further expand into new, synergistic markets such as the commercial vehicle industry.”
ThinkWireless founder and chief Argy Petros will stay as part of the takeover deal, as will Pierre Wassom, the company’s director of radio technology.
Petros commented: “Taoglas is well-known as a global brand that delivers the highest-quality antennas and RF solutions to the automotive, IoT and other markets. Taoglas’ global scale and sales channels are unparalleled and will help grow the reach of ThinkWireless’ solutions in the trucking and commercial vehicle industry around the world.”
Taoglas released a new range of antennas for LTE-M and NB-IoT networks, as well as unlicensed LPWA equivalents like LoRa and Sigfox, at the end of last year. The new antennas pack high power into small packages, and promise faster and cheaper scalability of solutions, it said.
