Avnet acquires Dragon Innovation

Avnet (NYSE: AVT) has announced that it has acquired Dragon Innovation, expanding the global distributor´s portfolio of offerings for customers as they move from design to prototype to volume production, the company said.

Dragon Innovation´s proven process and deep hardware experience help customers understand manufacturing costs and schedules, find factories and manage production as they scale their businesses.

The acquisition of Dragon Innovation further enhances Avnet´s role in developing new technology products by simplifying the manufacturing process, particularly for those projects that advance Internet of Things (IoT).

Avnet´s acquisition of both Premier Farnell (which included its element14 community) and Hackster.io last year expanded the company´s reach to more than two million customers and an active community of more than 750,000 entrepreneurs, makers and engineers. In May, Avnet, through a collaboration with Dragon Innovation and Kickstarter, announced Hardware Studio, an initiative that will give creators access to expertise, tools and resources to supply, design, build and deliver their ideas to market.

For the last eight years, Dragon Innovation has been reinventing the way companies manufacture products at scale. Dragon Innovation, through its cloud-based platform, paired with a team of hardware manufacturing experts, manages the full manufacturing process, from strategy and planning for earlier stage products to factory selection and production oversight. Its modern SaaS platform, Product Planner, coupled with humans in the loop greatly simplifies and de-risks the journey from “One to Many.”

Dragon Innovation complements Avnet´s breadth in the industrial market with strong consumer electronics market experience. They have worked across a wide range of industries including emerging IoT vertical segments such as home automation, wearables, robotics and automotive.

From idea to design and from prototype to production, Avnet supports customers at each stage of a product´s lifecycle. A comprehensive portfolio of design and supply chain services makes Avnet the go-to guide for innovators who set the pace for technological change. For nearly a century, Avnet has helped its customers and suppliers around the world realize the transformative possibilities of technology. Learn more about Avnet at: www.avnet.com. (AVT_IR)