Hero Electronix's Tessolve acquires UK-based chip design services firm T&VS

The acquisition is expected to help Tessolve to become the largest semiconductor engineering services player in the world

Hero Electronix, a part of the Hero Group, primarily known for manufacturing motorcycles, said it has acquired UK-based Test & Verification Solutions (T&VS), a leading provider of chip design services. The acquisition was made through Tessolve, a Hero Electronix venture and a leading engineering solutions company, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition provides a strong impetus to Tessolve’s chip design offering taking its overall company strength to over 2,000 engineers. The company said it firmly cements Tessolve as a leading end-to-end provider of semiconductor engineering services.

“This is the largest acquisition by Tessolve till date and a critical addition in building Tessolve into the largest semiconductor engineering services player in the world,” said Nikhil Rajpal, CEO, Hero Electronix.  “If you look at Tessolve, we are closing the year with $70 million in revenue and with the addition of T&VS, it would be another $10 million in revenue. So, we are already at $80 million in revenue with Tessolve as the business. We clearly see the path for Tessolve in 3-4 years to get to about $250 million in revenue,” said Rajpal.

T&VS is the fifth acquisition by Tessolve in the past 4 years. Complementing its aggressive approach in growing the capabilities organically, the firm said these strategic acquisitions have put Tessolve in a unique position to offer a comprehensive spectrum of services to semiconductor companies. The acquisition adds a strong team and capability depth in a critical area like chip design and expands Tessolve’s presence into the UK and Japan markets.

“The addition of T&VS talent and technologies will enable us to provide more integrated and optimized chip design solutions,” said P Raja Manickam, CEO, Tessolve. “Design verification and validation is an important phase in the design and production cycle of every semiconductor product and accelerates taking products to market,” Manickam.

Founded in 2008 in the UK by Mike Bartley, an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in the design verification domain, T&VS is a leading provider of ‘design verification solutions’ to semiconductor companies. It has steadily expanded its offerings into ‘design for test’ (DFT) and embedded software with over 400 people across multiple markets including UK, India, Japan, US and Singapore.

“We had very good discussions and close collaboration during the acquisition, to make sure all of our employees are kept on board,” said Mike Bartley, CEO and Founder, T&VS.  “So we didn’t lose any of the employees during the acquisition process and all of them are very positive about it,” said Bartley.

In 2017, Tessolve acquired Spectrum Integrated and analog design business of Analog Semiconductors and test lab business of Lynxemi Pte. In 2016, it bought TES DST.

Regarding the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak on the semiconductor industry, Manickam of Tessolve said that so far he has not seen any big impact and there has been a little bit of effect in terms of execution due to the restrictions on travel and other factors. “We are still seeing the momentum in terms of requirement from the semiconductor (industry) such as the new markets, 5G and Internet of Things,” said Manickam. “ I don't see a slowdown in that momentum, but probably short term, maybe a couple of months and it is more due to the execution rather than the market requirement. My personal feeling is that (there is ) going to be an increase in the 5G deployment, the bandwidth requirement and security,” said Manickam.

Bartley of T&VS said that the companies have not changed their roadmap yet due to the coronavirus outbreak and research and development groups are still working on those plans. “Most of our employees now are working from home as well. In the UK our clients are taking precautions and asking our engineers to work from home,” said Bartley.