News Article

Acumentrics acquires, spins out Canadian biz
Date: May 24, 2007
Author: Efrain Viscarolasaga
Source: bizjournals ( click here to go to the source)

Featured firm in this article: Acumentrics Corporation of Walpole, MA



After tripling production capacity for its rugged, uninterruptible power supplies earlier in the year, officials at Westwood-based Acumentrics Corp. have turned to bolstering the company's solid oxide fuel cell business.

Last week, Acumentrics made public its acquisition of the assets and employees of Ontario, Canada-based Fuel Cell Technologies Ltd., a developer of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), spun out of Canadian aluminum and materials maker Alcan Inc. in 1994.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As a result of the acquisition, however, Acumentrics has formed Acumentrics Canada Ltd., which will occupy the former Fuel Cell Technologies offices and consist of four employees, formerly employed by Fuel Cell Technologies. Acumentrics expects to add four more employees to the Canadian group by the end of the year, said Gary Simon, CEO of Acumentrics.

The new facility will focus on engineering new fuel cell products for the home, military and commercial markets, said Simon, but will be working with technologies from Acumentrics, rather than that developed by Fuel Cell Technologies.

"(Fuel Cell) had developed a technology very different from ours, and it was just not successful," said Simon. As a result, he said, the facility will focus on "balance of plant" development, referring to the various subsystems involved in the commercial deployment of fuel cells, such as cooling, storage and other areas.

Acumentrics has been growing steadily over the past few years, said Simon. The company has gone from 47 employees in 2004 to 76 today, and doubled its revenue over that period, though Simon would not provide precise numbers