TROY — The Troy-based engineering technology developer Altair Inc. (Nasdaq: ALTR) announced the acquisition of Garching, Germany-based FluiDyna GmbH, a developer of fluid dynamics and numerical simulation technologies.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Altair first announced an investment in FluiDyna in 2015.
FluiDyna’s simulation software products, ultraFluidX and nanoFluidX, have been available to Altair’s customers through the Altair Partner Alliance and also offered as standalone licenses.
UltraFluidX solves large-scale internal and external aerodynamics problems for a broad class of applications including ultra-fast prediction and evaluation of vehicle, building, and environmental aerodynamics. The software is based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method, providing users with superior performance and dramatically reducing the model preparation time for large, complex models.
NanoFluidX is a fluid dynamics simulation tool based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method to predict the flow in complex geometries with complex motion. For example, it can be used to predict the oiling in powertrain systems with rotating shafts and gears, and analyze forces and torques on individual components of the system.
James Scapa, Altair founder, chairman, and CEO, said in a press release: “We believe the increased throughput and lower cost of GPU solutions is going to allow for a significant increase in simulations which can be used to further impact the design process.”
In addition to continued growth and development of current FluiDyna products, the acquisition is intended to help the complementary technical teams of both organizations accelerate Altair’s broader offerings in computational fluid dynamics.
Altair has 71 offices in 24 countries and more than 2,000 employees. It posted revenue of $333.3 million in 2017, up from $313.2 million in 2016. The company conducted its initial public stock offering in November 2017. The company posted a loss of $99.4 million for the year, vs. net income of $10.2 million a year earlier, due to sharply higher research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative costs, caused in part by the IPO.