Sweden-based Anoto Group AB Acquire Long time partner Livescribe for $15M

Swedish-digital writing company Anoto has agreed to acquire California-smartpen maker Livescribe for $15 million.

The agreement was announced on November 6 by Livescribe, which has a licensing partnership with Anoto since its foundation in 2008, according to a report from Venture Beat. Anoto Group AB operates in the consumer, healthcare, finance, transportations, and education industries. Anoto's mission is to provide, "fast and reliable transmission of handwriting into a digital format... through a global partner network that delivers user-friendly digital-writing solutions for efficient capture, transmission, distribution, and storage of data." Anoto's technology can help capture and digitize handwritten documents and put them on larger displays.

According to CNN News, the acquisition will benefit both companies. It will let Anoto expand its product portfolio into the retail distribution and consumer market. It also allows Livescribe to hasten its innovations to cater to newer market. According to Anoto CEO Stein Revelsby, acquiring Livescribe is an important part in consolidating the company's ecosystem, and synergizes hardware and software development. He said that they are working on new products that will be launched through Livescribe's sales channels next year.

Tech Crunch has reported that Livescribe's narrow focus on developing handheld and smaller equipment may be one of the company's problems as it faces steep competition against other startups, such as Paper and Apple, which is now developing a digital "pencil." Livescribe CEO Gilles Gouchard, said merging with Anoto gives them a huge opportunity to bring smartpen technology to a new market beyond writing and drawing.

Some of Livescribe's major products are the Echo and Livescribe 3 smartpen. These products made it an attractive company for Anoto to acquire. The smartpen maker was successful in raising $39 million two years after its foundation in 2008. It has been raising further rounds ever since. Accoridng to Anoto, the $15 million is an all-cash deal that is based on the estimated annual sales for 2015.