GE Acquires Espoo Based Imbera Electronics

    The last time we heard about Imbera Electronics was in the distant 2009, when the chip-packaging company announced a massive $15 Million round led by Conor Venture Partners, Northzone Ventures and Index Ventures.

    The company specializes in embedded technology, which in its simplest terms means building computer and circuit board systems with dedicated functions. For example the insides of your iPhone is an embedded system of components. What the company does is basically getting more stuff into less space, while remaining efficient and cost-effective.

    Their leading solution is the so called Integrated Module Board (IMB), which promises to decrease the size of embedded systems by up to 40% while improving electrical and thermal properties. This means smaller devices, more freedom in design, better performance, less cost and more. This technology is used in smartphones, tablets, advanced avionics, power distribution systems and many other applications.

    The company was just acquired by GE and Manu Mäkela, Partner at Conor Venture Partners, told ArcticStartup that GE itself could not apply their own technology to smaller devices such as mobile phones and tables and needed Imbera Electronics to consider that segment more seriously. Originally they planned to license the technology but through close negotiations over the past 3 years, it was decided that an acquisition made more sense.

    Although the size of the deal is unknown, Mäkela commented that they are very happy with the acquisition. Considering the $15 million round in 2009, followed by a number of internal investments by Conor last year, making them the largest investor in the company, we can only assume that this was a pretty big deal.

    According to Risto Tuominen, the CEO and founder of Imbera Electronics, the acquisition makes sense for both companies as “combining the high volume-focused and cost effective embedded technology from Imbera with the advanced thermal and power handling capability of GE creates the most compelling technology platform for advanced high density electronics packaging.”

    For GE, this is an important acquisition in their fight to stay in the leading role in advanced electronics and electronics packaging by creating one of the most extensive intellectual property and technology portfolios for embedded electronic packaging in the world, covering applications from low-power consumer products to high-power industrial electronics.

    After Sensinode’s sale to ARM, this is the second technology exit for the region in under two months and both companies were portfolio companies of Conor VC.