Zebra completes Photoneo buyout

The acquisition will bolster Zebra’s machine vision solutions portfolio

Zebra Technologies has completed the purchase of developer and manufacturer of 3D machine vision solutions Photoneo.

This acquisition expands the US vendor’s 3D machine vision use cases for customers in automotive manufacturing, logistics, as well as other industries.

The company will strive to address a wider range of use cases by combining its sensors, vendor-agnostic software, and AI-based image processing capabilities, with Photoneo’s 3D machine vision solutions.

These include applications such as bin picking, depalletising, creating digital twins, and inspecting objects.

The Slovakian company’s sensors can also interact with a variety of technologies such as robot-arm applications for bin picking.

“This acquisition addresses the needs of customers globally who want to maximise the potential of machine vision within their frontline operations,” said Bill Burns, CEO of Zebra.

“Building on Zebra’s proven expertise in autonomous data capture, inspection software and deep learning AI capabilities, this combination expands our portfolio of highly differentiated 3D sensors and advanced 3D machine vision software.

“We look forward to welcoming the Photoneo team to the Zebra family.”

The two companies already collaborated in 2024 to create an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship for Photoneo cameras, which broadened Zebra’s 3D portfolio offering.

Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Photoneo Brightpick Group, added: “Zebra Technologies will provide an ideal environment for Photoneo to further accelerate its innovation.

“By combining world-class 3D sensors from Photoneo with Zebra’s global reach and best-in-class 3D software, customers will be able to unlock considerable business value from machine vision across new, exciting use cases.”

This isn’t Zebra’s first investment in the machine vision market, as the vendor took over Matrox Imaging in June 2022, to boost its fixed industrial scanners and machine vision sensors offering.

The buyout of Photoneo was first announced in December 2024.

Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.