Leosphere’s offers the Windcube and Wind Iris lidars. They will be incorporated into Vaisala’s Triton Wind Profiler package, which includes sonic detection and ranging [sodar] tools.
The acquisitions will be part funded by cash and interest-bearing debt, Vaisala said.
"It is common practice for wind energy firms to deploy lidar and sodar [sonic detection and ranging] to inform crucial decisions relating to site prospecting, resource assessment, and turbine performance testing," said Jarkko Sairanen, executive vice president of weather and environment at Vaisala.
"Adoption of these more versatile measurement technologies to augment conventional met towers is a key factor in enabling the wind industry to increase the scale of project development, not only through larger, more advanced turbines, but also in new, remote markets worldwide.
"Leosphere is a global technology leader in its area and has high R&D focus, just like Vaisala. We are very excited and happy to welcome Leosphere employees to join Vaisala", Sairanen continued.
Leosphere CEO Alexandre Sauvage added: "By integrating into the Vaisala Group, Leosphere gains the scale to strengthen and perpetuate its position as an industrial supplier of efficient lidar solutions; a technology now recognised as strategic by the measurement sector.
"Leosphere and Vaisala have already worked together for several years in the airport field due to the complementary nature of their technologies.
"The complementarity of the expertise and portfolios of our two companies represents the major strength of this acquisition," Sauvage said.
According to Vaisala, Leosphere sells to 40 countries and employs 125 people. It recorded net sales of €27 million in 2017.
As a result of the acquisition, Vaisala altered its outlook for 2018 increasing predicted sales total from €330-350 million to €340-360 million.
Its earnings before interest and tax (Ebit) is expected to be slightly lower than predicted at €30-36 million, from €35-45 million suggested in the half-year report.
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