Zebra Technologies to Acquire Photoneo

With its decision to acquire Photoneo (Bratislava, Slovakia) a developer of 3D imaging solutions, Zebra Technologies continues its expansion in the machine vision market.

Zebra (Lincolnshire, IL, USA) expects to fund the purchase price for Photoneo with cash and to close the transaction during the first quarter of 2025. It did not disclose financial terms.

Zebra announced the acquisition of Photoneo from Photoneo Brightpick Group (Erlanger, KY, USA) on December 30. Following the acquisition, the Photoneo Brightpick Group will be renamed Brightpick and continue operating as a separate entity focused on developing and deploying AI-enabled robots to automate warehouse operations.

Expansion in Machine Vision

For its part, Zebra’s acquisition of Photoneo deepens the company’s offerings in machine vision, particularly in 3D imaging.

The move also follows Zebra’s acquisition of Matrox Imaging (Montreal, Canada) in 2022, a machine vision company that sold software libraries, frame grabbers, and smart cameras.

At a recent press event in Montreal, Canada, that was completely unrelated to the Photoneo acquisition, Joe White, Zebra’s chief product and solutions officer, said that Zebra’s machine vision software libraries, which it purchased from Matrox, include “some of the most mature 3D vision capabilities in the world.”

Zebra's customers use that software in complex pick-and-place operations in logistics and manufacturing, he added. "A 3D vision example would be robotic arm on a robotic automotive assembly line being able to pick up a part out of a bin to be assembled on to a vehicle. That ability to do that as you are picking up to know that you are picking up the exact right part in a bin full of all kinds of parts. We have that capability," White said.

In 2021, Zebra acquired Fetch Robotics, which sold autonomous mobile robots, and Adaptive Vision, known for its graphical machine vision software.

The products from all three companies have been integrated into Zebra’s product lines.

Figure 2: Joe White, chief product and solutions officer at Zebra Technologies.

Photoneo’s 3D Imaging Solution

Photoneo’s products will strengthen Zebra’s machine vision capabilities. Photoneo differentiates its products from the wide range of 3D imaging solutions on the market today with what it refers to as parallel structured light technology, which it says provides high-quality 3D data of moving objects quickly and without distortion. Those qualities make its products ideal for such vision-guided robotic tasks as bin picking, palletizing, and machine assembly, the company says.

Its flagship camera product is the MotionCam-3D, a 3D scanning camera with 2 MPixel resolution. It also sells AI-enabled software solutions for bin picking, palletizing, and other robotic functions.

“Zebra Technologies will provide an ideal environment for Photoneo to further accelerate its innovation,” said Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO at Photoneo Brightpick Group. “By combining world-class 3D sensors from Photoneo with Zebra’s global reach and best-in-class 3D software, customers will be able to unlock considerable business value from machine vision across new, exciting use cases,” he says.