Luna Innovations acquires Optasense, transforms fiber optic sensing solutions

Luna Innovations Inc. (Roanoke, Va., U.S.), provider of advanced optical technology, announced on Dec. 3 that it has acquired OptaSense Holdings, Ltd., a QinetiQ (Farnborough, U.K.) company for £29 million in cash. OptaSense is a recognized company in fiber optic distributed monitoring solutions for pipelines, oilfield services, security, highways and railways, as well as power and utilities monitoring systems. The combination is expected to create the world’s largest fiber optic sensing company. 

"The acquisition of OptaSense marks an important milestone in Luna’s history and will further support our growth trajectory," says Scott Graeff, president and CEO of Luna. "With the combination of Luna and OptaSense, we are bringing together businesses with strong adjacencies and a large, combined opportunity. This transaction allows Luna to acquire a leader in fiber optic sensing solutions and distributed acoustic sensing systems of a global size and scale that will truly be transformative to our company. In addition, OptaSense’s success has been driven by a world-class, industry-leading technology base and a very talented team of employees. We are excited about welcoming them to the Luna team.”

The acquisition provides Luna with important distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) intellectual property and products, which are said to strongly complement Luna’s existing portfolio, and provides algorithm-development expertise, critical for AI and machine learning. According to the company, OptaSense’s research and development talent and highly skilled sales force, combined with more than 150 active and pending patents, will also enhance Luna’s existing experienced team and broaden its intellectual property portfolio.

Additional advantages Luna expects from this transformative acquisition include:

• Bringing a diverse, blue-chip customer base with limited crossover with Luna’s customer base. This represents a significant opportunity for expansion into both customer groups.
• Allowing Luna to cost-effectively establish a strong operational presence internationally, building upon its already strong international customer base and sales capability.
• Rapidly generate expansion opportunities into high-growth markets such as security and perimeter detection, smart infrastructure monitoring and oil and gas.
• Realize efficiencies and leverage the combination of OptaSense and Luna to grow rapidly Luna’s operations, customer base, offerings and financial profile.

With the acquisition, OptaSense will become a fully owned subsidiary of Luna Innovations, while continuing to operate under its existing brand for the foreseeable future, and OptaSense employees will remain within the company, with offices in the U.K., Dubai, the U.S. and Canada. The acquisition is expected to be accretive in 2021.