Private equity fund Ambienta has announced the purchase of Italian distributor, iMAGE S, which is currently enjoying annual sales of €30m. iMAGE S provides imaging components and machine vision products to a variety of industries and, like many machine vision companies, is seeing healthy growth. Ambienta plan to create an international platform of distributors in a buy-and-build project similar to that involving Lakesight Technologies which, as we reported in October, Ambienta sold on to TKH for a huge ROI, making ten times their investment while sales quadrupled. The group will be under the umbrella of Next Imaging and iMAGE S founders Milena Longoni, Marco Diani and Paolo Longoni will be joined by Next Imaging CEO Fabrizio Ricchetti in running the organisation.

While it’s encouraging to know that investors are seeing massive potential in the machine vision sector, this move is more proof that acquisition and conglomeration are set to continue in our industry. Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with more industry news.