Shubham Sawarkar
Renesas, a Japanese electronics company, has paid $315 million (¥35.9bn) for Israeli smart wifi startup Celeno Communications. With the addition of Celeno’s wifi technology and software capabilities, the acquisition expands Renesas’ connectivity portfolio.
See also: Renesas MCUs are designed for IoT endpoint applications
Celeno, based in Israel, provides wireless communications solutions, such as wifi chipsets and software, for home networks, smart buildings, enterprise, and industrial industries. It is the most compact Wifi 6 and 6E chipsets that provide wifi network performance and better security with reduced latency and battery consumption.
Celeno’s ground-breaking wifi doppler imaging technology, a wifi-based, high-resolution imaging technology, is appropriate for home aged care and supported living, home security, safe driving, and digital and linked industries. It portrays, tracks, and analyses the motion, activity, and position of people and things using conventional wifi, obviating the need for several cameras or sensors in residential and business settings.
Renesas develops and manufactures low-power MCU, MPU, and SoC processors, as well as wireless ICs, sensors, and power management technologies. Celeno’s tried-and-true wifi and software capabilities round out the package. The combination results in end-to-end embedded solutions for low-power connection in IoT, infrastructure, industrial, and automotive applications.
With Celeno’s design centre in Israel and R&D professionals in Israel, Ukraine, India, China, Taiwan, and other locations, the acquisition expands Renesas’ engineering and design scale. This should strengthen Renesas’ global engineering and software development talent base, allowing Renesas to provide more seamless and expanded services to its global clients.
“The transaction underscores our continuous commitment to improve performance and efficiency in electronic systems,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, CEO of Renesas. “Building on our recently-expanded connectivity portfolio following the Dialog acquisition, the addition of Celeno provides us with more advanced wifi connectivity capabilities to deliver end-to-end connectivity for both clients and access points. Renesas is now strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities from the massive rise in connectivity and requirements created by today’s increasingly connected world.”
Gilad Rozen, CEO of Celeno, added: “This is a compelling transaction for both our customers and employees. Our depth and strength in connectivity combined with Renesas’ industry-leading portfolio of embedded solutions will allow us, together, to open up new growth areas we can target. Renesas will also provide us with the go-to-market capabilities to bring Celeno to a broader range of customers.”
The agreement has been jointly authorized by both businesses’ boards of directors and is scheduled to close by the end of this year, subject to usual closing conditions.
