iTIC Incubator at IIT Hyderabad Partners with Hexagon to Open Up Precision Center Metrology Lab

iTIC Incubator recently signed an MoU with Hexagon Capability Center India to establish Precision Centre Metrology Lab.

The Lab will cater to prototyping and part fabrication requirements while offering skill development courses designed to empower and equip budding entrepreneurs.

iTIC Incubator, a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) situated at IIT Hyderabad (IITH), recently signed an MoU with Hexagon Capability Center India (Hexagon’s R&D Center in India), the single largest R&D hub of the technology major Hexagon AB. The Precision Lab aims to provide access to precision measurement tools and upskilling courses for students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and startups.

As part of this partnership, Hexagon has set up a Precision Center Metrology Lab at iTIC Incubator, IITH campus. This facility will serve as a platform, enabling students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and startups to gain invaluable hands-on experience under the guidance of Hexagon's subject matter experts. The centrepiece of this lab will be the Precision Coordinate Measurement Machine, which is a high-precision instrument designed to elevate the standards of inspection capabilities.

The Precision Center Metrology Lab is set to be a game-changer, particularly for startups and organizations incubated at IITH. It will cater to their prototyping and part fabrication requirements while offering skill development courses designed to empower and equip these budding entrepreneurs. The cutting-edge machinery will also be instrumental in reverse engineering activities for research purposes.

The lab's resources will not be limited to just the academic community; it will also be accessible to external startups and organizations, promoting a collaborative environment where innovation and progress are boundless.

Hexagon has been steadfast in its commitment to fostering educational excellence. Over the years, it has consistently contributed to enhancing educational infrastructure, providing training programs, and developing facilities through partnerships with academic institutions, colleges, universities, and government agencies.

Expressing his joy at the start of this Lab, Prof B S Murty, Director IITH, commented, “Providing the necessary facilities to the aspiring entrepreneurs and startups to take their idea from Lab to Market is one of the key priorities of IITH and Academia-Industry collaboration is a crucial part of it. We hope that this facility at iTIC incubator will act as a catalyst for more such collaborations to come.’’

Commenting on the launch, Mr Navaneet Mishra, Senior Vice President and Head of Hexagon’s R&D Center India, said, “India has a thriving market in hardware manufacturing that often doesn’t get as much visibility as software does. Engineers need smart ways to test ideas, prototype faster, and do better inspections. With this Lab, we will power their passion with our technology and expertise. When more engineers gain easy access to cutting-edge technologies, devices and methodologies, they will build products that are faster to market with world-class quality. Hexagon’s partnership with iTIC, IIT Hyderabad will enable a broader impact in the overall ecosystem."

About iTIC Incubator at IIT Hyderabad:

iTIC is a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) and supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. iTIC is a Not-For-Profit Society that focuses on creating a supportive and nourishing environment for budding entrepreneurs in the field of technology. The focus areas of the iTIC incubator are deep tech sectors such as Healthcare, AI/ML, Quantum Computing, AR/VR, Cybersecurity, Robotics, IoT, Industry 4.0, Blockchain, Electronics, Advanced materials, Drones, Biotechnology, etc. iTIC aims to help entrepreneurs leverage a premier quality research and startup ecosystem with the goal of building a comprehensive platform to practice innovation and entrepreneurship so that these entrepreneurial ideas can be turned into sustainable, scalable, profit-making business ventures. iTIC provides support to startups such as Mentoring, Financial Aid, IP Support, Networking, and access to Dedicated office/ Coworking space, Software, IITH Technological Infrastructure, and Makerlab. Since its inception in 2015, iTIC has supported 130+ startups through Pre-incubation, Incubation, and Acceleration programs and has directly sanctioned more than INR 8 crores to startups. So far, the iTIC startups have generated over INR 1200 crores of revenues and created 1000+ jobs.

To know more, please visit https://itic.iith.ac.in

About HCCI:

Hexagon’s R&D Center in India Hexagon’s R&D Center in India is the single largest R&D hub for the company globally. Over 2,000 talented engineers and developers create innovation from this center that powers Hexagon's products and solutions.

It was established with Hexagon’s acquisition of Intergraph, the first IT MNC in Hyderabad and has now grown to deliver innovations and create solutions for all business lines of Hexagon, including Asset Lifecycle Intelligence, Safety Infrastructure, and Geospatial, Geosystems, Mining, Manufacturing Intelligence and Autonomous Solutions. It also hosts a few dedicated services teams for global implementation of Hexagon's products.

To know more, please visit https://www.hexagon-cci.com

About IIT Hyderabad:

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is one of the eight IITs established by the Government of India in 2008. In a short span of 15 years, the institute has become one of the top-ranked institutions in the country and has received global recognition. It has 300+ full-time faculty, 4,800+ students, 18 Departments + 1 Centre for Interdisciplinary Programs, nearly 300+ state-of-the-art Research Facilities, and five research and entrepreneurship centres. The institute has a strong research focus with approx. Rs 900+ crores of sanctioned research funding, with PG+PhD students accounting for about 60% of total student strength. IITH has more than 9500+ research publications with 1,42,000+ Citations, 190+ Published Patents, 3,700+ sponsored/consultancy projects with 500+ running projects, and about 135+ startups that have generated 1000+ jobs and a revenue of Rs. 1200+ Cr. Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Koo, and YouTube for the latest updates.

T-Hub Partners with Hexagon to Build a Geospatial Experience Centre

The Geospatial Experience Centre will be placed at T-Hub’s new facility, building solutions and products on Hexagon’s technology platform.

The partnership aims to provide startups with potential co-creation, and partnership opportunities.

T-Hub, which leads India’s innovation ecosystem, today announced its partnership with Hexagon, a global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensors, software and autonomous technologies to build a Geospatial Experience Centre at T-Hub. With this collaborative partnership, both organisations aim to further accelerate India’s growing startup ecosystem by providing technology expertise to startups.

This partnership will help Hexagon to leverage T-Hub’s innovation expertise and ecosystem of startups, corporates, and investors to accelerate its innovation agendas. Hexagon, a leading geospatial technology corporation, will provide an array of opportunities to startups, such as access to technology expertise (both hardware and software), co-creation and co-innovation of products, support in building pilots and Proofs-of-Concept (POCs) and providing mentorship wherever required. Hexagon will also build a sandbox environment to help startups in building solutions. 

Besides this, the Geospatial experience centre will be leveraged to identify innovative ideas, individuals and startups while also boosting technological capabilities for startups, such as facilitating open innovation for early and growth stage startups, experiments for developing POCs in the fields of Geospatial technology, networking and partnership exposure and accelerating their proficiencies

MSR, CEO of T-Hub, said, “We are excited to have Hexagon join our innovation ecosystem and look forward to working with them to shape the future of the geospatial industry in a connected and sustainable way. The Experience Center will help create breakthrough solutions with knowledge and expertise to create more value for startups and our partner.”

Navaneet Mishra, SVP and GM of Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI), said,” HCCI is the single largest R&D hub of Hexagon globally, and we are fortunate to be working on all of Hexagon’s business units and technologies. To expand our innovation beyond our employee base, we have decided to collaborate with THUB and open a Geospatial Experience Center Hub that will be open to relevant startups. They will be able to build on top of our platforms and solutions and scale while solving real world problems.”

Further, the centre will provide access to Hexagon’s geospatial technology for external research developments through academic and research partners. The collaboration is also aimed at creating solutions for the Indian and global markets.

Dr Burkhard Boeckem, CTO, Hexagon AB, “Hexagon is a global leader in smart digital reality with core capabilities in sensors, software, and autonomous solutions. India has a booming startup ecosystem, and we strongly feel that we can collaborate with the budding geospatial startups to help them in their respective journeys and learn in the process.”

T-Hub’s programs have been successfully scaling startups in partnership with a robust ecosystem of partners. T-Hub, to date, has impacted over 2000 startups through various programs and initiatives, has over 600 global and national corporate partners and has provided 2000 mentor connects to help the startup scale. T-Hub will continue to drive collaboration between startups and leading innovation ecosystems worldwide, providing global market-access opportunities to startups.

T-Hub (Technology Hub) is an innovation hub and ecosystem enabler. Based out of Hyderabad, India, T-Hub leads India’s pioneering innovation ecosystem and is the world’s largest innovation campus. Over the six years, T-Hub has pivoted around the 6Ms (Mentorship, Money, Market Access, Motivation, Mindset, Manpower) and 2Ps (Partnerships & Policy advisory) framework with a mission of driving results and collaboration for entrepreneurs’ success. It has delivered 100+ innovation programs so far, creating an impact for startups, corporations, and other innovation ecosystem stakeholders. Since inception, it has provided over 2000 national and international startups with access to better technology, talent, mentors, customers, corporates, investors, and government agencies.

Digital Reality Firm Hexagon Acquires ETQ, Adding Market-leading SaaS-based QMS Software Platform to Its Portfolio

Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital reality solutions combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies, today announced the acquisition of ETQ, a leading provider of SaaS-based QMS (quality management system), EHS (environment, health and safety) and compliance management software.

Customers have long relied on ETQ’s future-ready, truly multi-tenant QMS solution, ETQ Reliance. It provides the data backbone for automating the collection and delivery of manufacturing quality control data, non-conformance reports, customer feedback and more, providing an enterprise view of quality management across the entire product lifecycle. Its broad portfolio of best-in-class applications comes with out-of-the-box functionality and no-code configurability, enabling customers to tailor the solution to their unique needs and optimise critical business processes to achieve their quality, safety and environmental goals.

“Our leadership in quality data capture and smart digital realities makes ETQ an excellent fit. The acquisition brings a mix of talent and deep quality expertise across extensive industry verticals, targeting the rapidly widening gap between quality data creation and leverage,” says Hexagon President and CEO Ola Rollén. “Integrating data from our metrology systems with Reliance leads to increasing levels of autonomy that improve a customer’s ability to put quality and process data to work. ETQ also enables connectivity of quality data and processes across supply chains, bringing suppliers and customers into one system.”

ETQ’s advanced data management capabilities, driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence, make quality data fully actionable and available further upstream. Not only does this reduce defects, scrap, rework, and recalls, but it also enables an autonomous feedback loop, digital information trail and virtuous cycle of continuous improvement.

“Hexagon has long been in the business of enabling customers to realise the benefits that data-driven automation and product quality insights bring, including the freedom to create the undisputed factory floor of tomorrow—one that is self-sufficient, self-monitoring, self-optimising and self-repairing,” continued Rollén. “With our global footprint, vertical synergies and good customer fit, which includes our recently acquired EAM business, ETQ is poised for rapid growth. We’re proud to welcome ETQ to the family as we continue to accelerate our journey to the cloud and build the world’s leading quality stack from shop floor to top floor.”

Founded in 1992, ETQ is headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, with additional offices in Arizona, USA and Dublin, Ireland. With 185 employees, its team of quality experts drive customer success across diverse industries—life sciences, healthcare, heavy manufacturing, electronics, food and beverage, heavy process, automotive and more. ETQ will operate as part of Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division.

Transaction overview

ETQ is expected to generate revenues of around 75 MUSD in 2022 with an adjusted operating margin of over 35 per cent (cash EBITDA margins of around 45 per cent, reflecting a SaaS prepayment model). ETQ has been driving its customer base to SaaS, which is expected to account for half of bookings in 2022 and has been growing at a trailing 3-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 60 per cent. Given the strong fit across Hexagon’s manufacturing and process industries and the significant scope for geographical expansion, the transaction is expected to generate sales synergies of over 40 MUSD, with very strong incremental margins, by 2026.

Transaction and integration costs including surplus values in the purchase price allocations (PPA) and deferred revenue adjustments affecting the income statement will be communicated as soon as the calculations are completed.

Hexagon will pay a purchase price of 1,200 MUSD for ETQ on a cash and debt free basis. The cash consideration will be fully financed via existing debt facilities resulting in a proforma net debt to EBITDA ratio of approximately 2.0 after the transaction. ETQ will be accretive to Hexagon’s adjusted earnings (before PPA and other purchase accounting adjustments) as of closing.

Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions, which are expected to be fully completed by early in the second quarter 2022.

For further information, please contact:

Maria Luthström, Head of Sustainability and Investor Relations, Hexagon AB, +46 8 601 26 27, ir@hexagon.com

Kristin Christensen, Chief Marketing Officer, Hexagon AB, +1 404 554 0972, media@hexagon.com

This is information that Hexagon AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 08:00 CET on 25 February 2022.

Hexagon is a global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, quality and safety across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, public sector, and mobility applications.

Hexagon's technologies are shaping production and people related ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous – ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.

Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 22,000 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 4.3bn EUR. Learn more at hexagon.com and follow us @HexagonAB.

India's 1st Artificial Intelligence Community Center “HexArt Institute” Launched By Hexagon in Partnership with NASSCOM Foundation

Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI), the largest product development unit of the technology major Hexagon AB, has launched HexArt Institute, the India’s first Artificial Intelligence Community Center in Hyderabad today. Shri Jayesh Ranjan, IT & EC, Secretary, Government of Telangana, inaugurated and dedicated the center to the city of Hyderabad and the State of Telangana.

HCCI is proud of its CSR education outreach and considers this institute as a positive and timely societal responsibility initiative. The center will cover more than 350 students every year across multiple batches. Established at a cost of INR 64 Lakhs, the institute incorporates state-of-the-art infrastructure, IT hardware & software and a well-designed curriculum. HCCI will invest further INR 30 Lakhs YoY to manage the AI community center.

The purpose of HexArt is to democratize AI knowledge cum skill to the masses, and to provide free education on AI to the community. The fundamental and advanced level courses are designed for students from Class 8 to Class 12 and senior engineering graduate respectively. NASSCOM Foundation, the CSR partner for this endeavour, brought in their expertise of setting up learning centres. They also onboarded Li2 Technologies as implementation partners to design and execute the courses along with administrative responsibilities.

The courses and certification programs at HexArt Institute have been specifically designed by industry professionals. The courses will encourage students to engage in self-learning, innovations, and inventions. The 2,000 sq ft, air-conditioned and fully equipped facility at Mehdipatnam is now open to residents of Hyderabad and the State of Telangana.

Sharing the government’s goals, Honourable Minister of IT & Industries, Shri KT Rama Rao, in his message, said “Telangana has defined its vision to be a global frontrunner in AI and other emerging technologies. The State is on the path of building a conducive Innovation ecosystem. He reaffirmed by saying that a skilled workforce will be critical to unleash the government's 2020 AI vision’s full potential.”

Shri Jayesh Ranjan, who inaugurated the setup, commented that "2020 is commemorated in Telangana as the year of AI and it will be a key focus for the coming year and beyond as well.” He also spoke about the state's plans of creating talent for emerging technologies - "It is critical that we build a strong talent pool and AI is going to play a key role. I fully appreciate Hexagon’s contribution in fuelling the community level growth for futuristic technology”, Ranjan said.

Debjani, President NASSCOM, who kept herself abreast of the development of the center, commented “Data and Artificial intelligence can add $450-500 billion to India's GDP by 2025. We must start today and prepare a talent pool that can help India propel to be the leader in AI tech. It’s nice to see companies like Hexagon taking a crucial step in this direction. We believe that with close collaboration between the private sector, the public sector and the civil society, and by focussing our collective expertise and energies on the most pressing problems of today, AI can achieve the goal of a socially empowered, inclusive, and digitally transformed India.”

Announcing the opening of the HexArt Institute, Navaneet Mishra, VP and General Manager, HCCI, said “The goal of AI community center is to empower and upskill the next generation of youth with AI skills. We need to make AI pervasive to compete and succeed in today’s world. As the oldest MNC in Hyderabad, we are committed towards building the state’s talent community, and advance their growth.”

Earlier this year, HCCI signed an MoU with the Government of Telangana. The company is more than happy to contribute towards the government's commitment to sustain and grow the AI knowledge base in the city and state. Mishra added.

About hexagon: Hexagon is a global leader in sensor, software and autonomous solutions. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, and quality across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications.Our technologies are shaping urban and production ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous — ensuring a scalable, sustainable future.

Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 20,000 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 3.9bn EUR, with an operating margin of 25%.

Learn more at hexagon.com and follow us @HexagonAB. 

ABOUT HCCI:

Hexagon Capability Center India (HCCI) is the largest technology R&D hub of Hexagon, a global leader in digital solutions that enable productivity and quality improvements across manufacturing, infrastructure, safety, and mobility applications.

Innovations, consistent deliveries and ever-evolving technologies at HCCI has helped various Hexagon units to grow its business and customer base globally. HCCI has product teams that work on product portfolios for PPM, Safety & Infrastructure, Geospatial, Geosystems, Mining, Manufacturing Intelligence and Positioning Intelligence. In addition, HCCI has dedicated services teams that provide implementation services for PPM and SI customers worldwide.

HCCI, one of the earliest IT companies in the city of Hyderabad has a rich history of 33 years (earlier known as Intergraph Consulting Pvt Ltd) and currently employs a workforce of over 1,400 colleagues.