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Acquisition will help grow Taoglas’s presence in the truck, bus, motorcycle and off-road industry.
Wexford firm Taoglas is preparing to dominate the automotive internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) market by completing the acquisition of US firm ThinkWireless for an undisclosed sum.
ThinkWireless is an antenna provider that specialises in the design, development and production of combination antenna systems for the commercial vehicle market.
Taoglas, an Enniscorthy-based tech company, provides advanced antenna and radio frequency (RF) solutions to the world’s leading wireless and IoT companies. Formed 13 years ago, the company is led by co-CEOs Dermot O’Shea and Ronan Quinlan. It employs more than 40 people in Wexford and Dublin, and more than 350 worldwide. With in-house manufacturing, Taoglas deliver high-quality products across different wireless and IoT use cases using LTE, GNSS, Wi-Fi and beyond to 5G, across a variety of applications including telematics, automotive, metering, smart grid, wearables, medical devices, high-speed video broadcasting and remote monitoring.
In 2016 the company invested more than $2m in an IoT design centre in San Diego and in 2017 it invented a new kind of radio antenna system for the next generation of connected cars.
Room to vroom
The ThinkWireless brand will become ‘ThinkWireless, a Taoglas company’. ThinkWireless founder and CEO, Dr Argy Petros, and director of RF technology, Pierre Wassom, will remain with the company.
“ThinkWireless has made a name for itself as a designer and developer of high-quality combination antenna systems with deep roots in the commercial trucking industry, where infotainment services – including good quality of service from satellite and AM/FM radio, weather band and GNSS – are crucial,” said Quinlan.
“As we continue to explore potential acquisitions to strengthen the Taoglas brand, we were struck by how similar ThinkWireless’s approach to antenna design and manufacturing is to our own commitment to excellence. This is a great acquisition for the Taoglas Group as we look to further expand into new, synergistic markets such as the commercial vehicle industry.”
ThinkWireless, headquartered in Coconut Creek in Florida, produces antenna systems that incorporate two or more frequency bands, including those for SiriusXM satellite radio, GPS, AM/FM, weather band, DAB, HDTV, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE.
The ThinkWireless facility will become Taoglas’s ninth design and development centre globally, and the third in the US, alongside centres in San Diego and Minneapolis.
“Taoglas’s global scale and sales channels are unparalleled, and will help grow the reach of ThinkWireless’s solutions in the trucking and commercial vehicle industry around the world,” Petros said.
