Bay Area software maker Wind River has acquired Portland design firm Particle Design, which specializes in user interface and user experience work.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Particle will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Wind River.
Wind River makes software used for smart devices. The 40-year-old company’s embedded software is used in billions of intelligent products that are connected to the internet and other networks. Particle has been working closely with Wind River over the last year on Wind River’s new Studio platform, a cloud product used for development, deployment and operations of mission-critical systems.
In Particle, Wind River gains expertise in user experience research, prototyping and software design. The entire team is staying with the company.
Wind River CEO Kevin Dallas said the focus on user interface and experience is crucial for the company as more and more devices are connected and intelligent.
“The graphical, natural and cognitive UI/UX expertise that Particle brings to Wind River Studio will further advance our mission of enabling our customers to realize the AI-infused, digital future of the planet,” he said in a written statement.
Wind River is owned by private equity firm TPG. Its customers are in industries such as aerospace, automotive, medical and industrial.
We spoke with Particle CEO Crystal Rutland for more on the deal:
How did this deal come about, were you shopping Particle for sale? Particle has been working with companies for over five years developing future technologies including autonomous driving, connected transportation, AI and machine learning. We knew that as an agency, there was only so much influence we could have over how things were designed when they reached the marketplace. Joining a product company was the next logical step to expand our impact as individuals and as a company.
Particle did have other requests from other companies to acquire us, but once we began our discussions with Wind River, we never looked back. They were a clear fit, our missions and visions are in complete alignment, and we couldn't be more pleased with the decision to join this amazing, world-class company.
Does this affect your other clients? Will you continue to work with them? Many of our clients are also clients of Wind River and/or part of the key industries that Wind River serves, including automotive, industrial and medical. Particle will be able to deliver the same world class UX design and research that we’ve always delivered, only now we will do it as part of the Wind River family.
Why does it make sense to join a company like Wind River? What can you do as part of Wind River that you couldn’t do before? Particle has spent the last five years developing a practice around something that we call Cognitive UI. In the same way that Graphical UI brought the personal computer into our homes and Natural UI brought smartphones into our pockets, Cognitive UI will bring computing into our minds. Cognitive UI is the way we will interact with technology starting now and into the future. We are in the middle of an AI revolution and how we respond to that revolution as designers and technologists will heavily influence the ultimate impact of AI in the real world. Wind River software is advancing this AI-first world with its new Wind River Studio platform for intelligent systems.
Will Particle stay in Portland? Yes, Particle will stay in Portland. Wind River has been growing its talent base in the Pacific Northwest and will be opening up a new office for its employees in the Portland area, which the Particle team will move into.
This is a great opportunity for Portland to continue to build its reputation as a technology center. In this era of artificial intelligence, how we design the human interaction with the digital world becomes more and more of an imperative. We need to expand our idea of technology to include the designers, researchers and technologists who are building this AI future. Portland is already known as a creative city — adding AI design to this roster can only benefit it.
