PORTLAND, Maine — Industrial automation company Kepware has reached an agreement to be acquired for about $100 million by a Massachusetts firm focused on collecting and analyzing data from Internet-connected devices.
PTC, based in Needham, Massachusetts, announced the purchase deal Wednesday in a news release and a regulatory filing.
Both companies focus on software and data collection for industrial applications, with the idea that better information about a factory’s operations can improve efficiency and the bottom line.
The publicly traded PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) said the sale price for Kepware is about five times its revenue, which was about $20 million during the past 12 months.
The company said the deal could include another $18 million if Kepware hits certain targets, bringing the total sale price to about $118 million. PTC said it expects the sale to close in early 2016.
A spokeswoman for PTC wrote in an email that she could not comment on specifics of the acquisition until it closes.
That includes whether Kepware would maintain a Portland office, what positions the company’s current management would have at PTC and whether Kepware would operate under the PTC name.
Mainebiz reported Kepware has more than 85 employees.
PTC said Kepware’s industrial data-gathering software would feed into its own machine-learning programs, which allows computer programs to learn and improve doing repetitive tasks.
PTC’s stock price was up 2.8 percent in afternoon trading Wednesday.