Anoto*, a Lund, Sweden-based global provider of digital writing and drawing solutions, is to acquire Livescribe Inc., the Oakland, California-based maker of smartpens.
The amount of the deal, which is expected to close later this month, was not disclosed. Livescribe will be fully integrated with Anoto as a wholly-owned subsidiary. As part of the agreement, Anoto is acquiring Livescribe’s entire business operations, technology, and intellectual property.
The acquisition allows the Swedish group to broaden its product portfolio, extend its business into the consumer market and retail distribution, and add a digital note-taking solution to its creative, collaborative and document processing and management solutions. As said by Stein Revelsby, CEO of Anoto, they are working on a new range of products to be launched in Livescribe’s sales channels in 2016.
Founded in 2007 and led by Gilles Bouchard, CEO, Livescribe provides a technology platform and branded products that enable the capture and digitization of handwritten notes and business forms on paper to designing, creating and collaborating directly on large interactive displays, whiteboards, and walls up to 24 feet.
Livescribe’s smartpens (which includes the Echo smartpen and the Livescribe 3 smartpen) allow students, business people, journalists, and anyone who values pen and paper note-taking to capture, access, and share everything they write, draw, and hear.
The company is backed by Crosslink Capital, Scale Venture Partners, Qualcomm, TransLink Capital, Presidio Ventures, Keating Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Lionhart and Aeris Capital, among others.
*Anoto Group AB is a global provider of digital writing solutions, which enables the transmission of handwriting into a digital format. The company is currently in use across multiple business segments, e.g. healthcare, pharmaceutical, bank and financial services, transportation and logistics, government and education. The group has over 100 employees and is headquartered in Lund (Sweden), with offices in Basingstoke, Guildford and Wetherby (UK), Los Angeles and Boston (US) and Tokyo (Japan).
Anoto trades its share on the Small Cap list of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm under the ticker ANOT.
FinSMEs
07/11/2015