Stemmer Imaging acquires stake in Perception Park

Stemmer Imaging is expanding its portfolio and acquires a stake in a software specialist, namely Perception Park GmbH, the Austrian provider of the data processing platform Perception System & Studio. The company is consolidated retroactively from 1 October 2018.

Perception Park also operates in the field of machine vision, with the company's expertise lying in Chemical Colour Imaging (CCI) software technology. The intuitively configurable data processing platform Perception System & Studio developed by Perception Park renders complex hyperspectral data at the molecular level usable for machine vision. The key technology's applications encompass the food-processing industry, mining, the healthcare sector and the recycling sector. In comparison with traditional machine vision systems, hyperspectral systems offer a whole spectrum for each pixel instead of a monochrome or colour value. In this way, highly precise colour coordinates, chemical material properties and layer thickness information can be derived from the acquired data. Chemistry is thus rendered visible.

Customers have been benefiting from the intensified cooperation between Stemmer Imaging and Perception Park since January 2016. After bolstering the distribution network by acquiring the Dutch Data Vision in January 2018 and the French ELVITEC S.A.S. in July 2018, Stemmer Imaging is now investing in an innovative software provider, Perception Park, for the first time. With this investment, Stemmer Imaging is enhancing its product portfolio with a pioneering technology of the future with high potential for growth on the market.

"We aim to implement the growth and internationalisation strategy announced in connection with the IPO as planned. For two years, we have already enjoyed cooperation with Perception Park that has been trusting and enriching in every respect. We believe that we can add an important technology to our product portfolio, leverage synergies in the future, and above all that our customers will benefit. In addition, we are strengthening our location in Graz, where we founded our wholly owned subsidiary in Austria at the start of June. This investment is therefore predominantly strategic in nature," says Lars Böhrnsen, CFO of Stemmer Imaging AG.

The purchase price amounts to a low single-digit million amount.