Altium Acquires Product Design Software Company Upverter

Things are looking up for Upverter.

The Toronto-based company that specializes in “making hardware less hard” has announced in a blog post that they are being acquired by Altium. Australia-owned Altium is a leading provider of design software for the electronics industry.

“Altium shares our vision for a powerful, collaborative new style of product design software,” wrote Upverter founder and CEO Zak Homuth. “Free, but powerful enough to design a real product, accessible-to-all, cloud-based and collaborative, and maybe, most importantly, incredibly intuitive, helpful even, and easy-to-use.”

Upverter strives to empower engineers by equipping them with world class technology, knowledge and the support they need to be successful. The company’s mission is to build tools that set hardware design back on track by bolstering it with innovative technology then fade into the background, freeing engineers to be as creative as they can possibly be.

Upverter has build the world’s most sophisticated cloud-based collaborative hardware design tool, helping more than 45,000 people design more than 80,000 devices in total.

The decision to join Altium is a natural one, according to Homuth.

“We’re joining forces with Altium because we think we can move faster, innovate faster, and grow faster together than we could apart,” wrote Homuth. “[Altium] enables us, to enable you – better than we ever could on our own.”

On top of this, Upverter wants their tools need to reach a wider audience and be put in the hands of all kinds of designers, straying away from focusing on the professionally trained.

“If the world is going to design millions of new IOT devices over the next decade then it needs a new style of design software,” wrote Homuth. “These devices won’t come from the CAD (computer-aided design) world. Their tools are unapproachable – made for professional, trained, and experienced electrical engineers.”

With the announcement, Upverter also removed their paid professional account tier today. From now on, the only version will be the best, most powerful and feature-packed one available. The best part? It is and will always remain free to use. This ensures anyone who wants to access the platform can do so, so Upverter has decided to focus on indirect monetization.

The full Upverter team has joined Altium and will continue to work on the platform.