Chinese wireless networking gear giant Huawei has acquired a UK Internet of Things (IoT) company called Neul for $25 million, reports say.
Neul, the reports say, will provide the nucleus of a large new effort by Huawei to get involved in the IoT business. Huawei will reportedly build a “center of excellence” around Neul in the UK.
Cambridge, U.K.-based Neul makes the radio modules that allow “things” to talk to each other, and to a central host. These are very lightweight, low-power sensors and meters that are used in industrial environments.
“Huawei is optimistic about the future of IoT,” Huawei told GigaOm in a statement. “It is a business opportunity that we are keen to exploit, and the acquisition of Neul with its unique brand of skills and technologies will help Huawei to achieve this.”
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Another report says that Neul had been looking for a large investor but could not find one. Meanwhile its nine-month-long relationship with Huawei developed quickly and led to the acquisition offer.
Neul CEO Stan Boland had this to say to the UK’s Business Weekly: “Huawei has the financial power, the desire, the technical knowhow and the global telecoms contacts to build Cambridge into a world-leading centre for IoT — and it is exactly what the movement needs to accelerate M2M [machine-to-machine] connectivity on the scale envisaged.”
The startup has raised $18.8 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, IQ Capital Partners, and Cambridge Business Angels.
Neul is the Gaelic word meaning ‘cloud.’
