Super-quick: Renesas completes Altium acquisition

Renesas announced yesterday that it had completed the AUS$9.1 billion (Yen 887.9 billion; US$6 billion or so) acquisition of Altium and that Altium is now a Renesas subsidiary.

In announcing the closing, Renesas CEO Hidetoshi Shibata said, “The integrated and open electronics system design and lifecycle management platform we aim to build together will make electronics accessible to the broader market, for any enterprises regardless of their size or industry … With the addition of Altium’s design software and cloud platform capabilities, we are excited to change the future of electronics system design with [Altium’s] industry-leading, talented software engineering team.”

Altium CEO Aram Mirkazemi remains divisional CEO and adds Senior Vice President and Head of Renesas’ Software & Digitalization to his remit. Mr. Mirkazemi said that Renesas will help speed up Altium’s “cloud-enablement of all industry processes associated with electronics design and development. This will make electronics accessible to a broader market and lay the foundation for software defined products.”

Renesas announced its Q2 results on 25 July but has not updated its financial targets to include the new business unit. Quick reminder: Altium had revenue of US$263 million and 77% recurring revenue in the fiscal year ended 30 June 2023. In its last/most recent financial release on 27 February 2024, Altium reported revenue up 16% year over year to $139 million for the six months ended December 2023.

It will be interesting to see how Altium changes Renesas — and if Renesas attempts to change Altium. In announcing the deal in February, Renesas said it hopes to “establish an integrated and open “electronics system design and lifecycle management platform” that allows for collaboration across component, subsystem, and system-level design … The acquisition brings together Altium’s sophisticated cloud platform capabilities with Renesas’ strong portfolio of embedded solutions, combining high-performance processors, analog, power and connectivity. The combination will also enable integration with third-party vendors across the ecosystem to execute all electronic design steps seamlessly on the cloud. The electronics system design and lifecycle management platform will deliver integration and standardization of various electronic design data and functions and enhanced component lifecycle management, while enabling seamless digital iteration of design processes to increase overall productivity.” That’s a really big vision, and it will take time to bring it to market.