The Week In Review: IoT

Deals
Rambus agreed to acquire the assets of Inphi’s Memory Interconnect Business for $90 million in cash. Under the usual closing conditions, the transaction is scheduled to conclude during the third quarter. The business assets take in customer contracts, intellectual property, product inventory, and supply-chain agreements. “By combining our buffer chip team with the Memory Interconnect Business of Inphi, we are able to instantly gain a strong market position and be well situated for future growth,” Rambus President and CEO Ron Black said in a statement. “This acquisition brings existing product revenue, proven technology, and faster time-to-market with a best-in-class memory technologies portfolio.”

Ayla Networks, a provider of IoT platforms, reports receiving $39 million in private funding for its Series C financing round, led by Ants Capital and 3NOD. The company hosts IoT clouds in China, Europe, and North America. It recently relocated its U.S. headquarters to an office building in Santa Clara, Calif., with 34,000 square feet of space.

Geopolitics
What effect will the “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom have on ARM’s business? The U.K.-based company gets most of its revenue in U.S. dollars. ARMH shares plummeted in the days immediately following last week’s referendum, yet recovered nicely to go above $45 a share in more recent trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Matthew Ramsay, an analyst who follows ARM for Cannacord Genuity, maintains a “buy” rating on the stock, with a price target of $55 a share. He likes ARM’s prospects in the Internet of Things, connected cars, networking, and other markets. The company may see lower royalty payments as Britain’s exit from the European Union unfolds, Ramsay speculates, offsetting lower costs realized with the decline in the value of the pound, which fell to a 30-year low after the “leave” vote prevailed.

Market Research
The three companies that will benefit the most from the Internet of Things are Cisco Systems, General Electric, and Verizon Communications, according to one report. Cisco stands to provide much of the necessary networking infrastructure for the IoT. GE is a purchaser and a purveyor of IoT technology with its Predix platform. And Verizon’s wireless network provides connections for IoT deployments and remote controls for connected devices in the field.

The PYMNTS.com Internet of Things Tracker, in conjunction with Intel, forecasts that IoT gateways will see a compound annual growth rate of more than 130% by 2020.

Research and Markets predicts the worldwide market for IoT platforms will increase from $629 million this year to more than $2.3 billion by 2021, for a CAGR of 30% over the next five years. The market research firm has a new report available, Technology Platforms for the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Industrial Internet of Things market will be worth $123.89 billion by 2021, with a 21% CAGR over five years, according to a report by IndustryARC.

Products
Silicon Laboratories brought out multiband, multiprotocol chips as part of its Wireless Gecko line of system-on-a-chip devices. According to the company, these new chips can be used for developing IoT products in such areas as asset tracking, building and home automation, connected lighting, electronic shelf labels, health and fitness monitoring, security, and smart meters.