Massimo Banzi, the developer who brought Arduino to the developer board market, has agreed to acquire 100 percent ownership of Arduino AG, the company that owns all Arduino trademarks. The latest development is touted to help the company generate “sustainable” growth through its open source hardware and software developments.
“This is the beginning of a new era for Arduino in which we will strengthen and renew our commitment to open source hardware and software, while in parallel setting the company on a sound financial course of sustainable growth,” said Banzi, in an official statement.
As a result of the acquisition, Banzi, 49, has become the new chairman and CTO of Arduino. Existing CEO Federico Musto has also been replaced with Dr. Fabio Violante.
“In the past two years, we have worked very hard to get to this point. We envision a future in which Arduino will apply its winning recipe to democratise the Internet of Things for individuals, educators, professionals and businesses,” said Dr. Violante.
Developed as an open source project back in 2003, Arduino is aimed to provide affordable solutions to individuals to build new devices. The boards under the Arduino range are available as open hardware and are compatible with a range of sensors and actuators. Last month, the Banzi-led company even partnered with the LoRa Alliance to start building hardware with the LoRaWAN standard.
Non-profit organisation in plans
In May, the Arduino Foundation got initiated to build an open source ecosystem for sectors like education, IoT markets and makers and receivers. The non-profit organisation is expected to work in line with the latest company to expand the original market presence.
“Our vision remains to continue to enable anybody to innovate with electronics for a long time to come,” Banzi concluded.
