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Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics, Leader In Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Technology.

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Electronic design automation (EDA) technology leader Mentor Graphics offers hardware and software design solutions that help businesses create superior electronic devices more quickly and affordably. The company provides cutting-edge solutions and products that assist engineers in overcoming the design difficulties they encounter in the escalatingly complicated realms of child and board design. 

About the Company

Founded in 1981, Mentor Graphics is an American electronic design automation(EDA) multinational company for electronics and electrical engineering. The company is headquartered in Oregon, United States. Since 2021, Siemens EDA has been the name of the old Mentor Graphics division. Mentor Graphics is known for selling products that automate electronic design, analogue mixed-signal design simulation tools, VPN services, fluid models, and heat transfer software. It is the only EDA firm with an embedded software solution. The company has the widest range of best-in-class products in the market.

History Of The Company

Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler, and Dave Moffenbeier, all of whom had previously worked for Tektronix, formed Mentor Graphics in 1981. Greylock, Venrock Associates and Stutter Hill contributed the initial $1 million round of funding. A third round, which raised another $7 million in April 1983, raised over $2 million through five venture capital groups in the next round. The first hardware platform was chosen to be Apollo Computer workstations. The founding members of Mentor Graphics initiated their first meetings with Apollo, a Massachusetts-based startup when it was barely a year old. Mentor Graphics used Apollo Computer workstations to distinguish its software and hardware in the computer-aided engineering (CAE) sector. When Mentor first entered the CAE industry, the organization had two distinguishing technical features: its software and hardware. While CAE companies like Daisy and Valid built their own hardware, Mentor ran all of its programs on the Apollo workstation. All EDA companies stopped using proprietary hardware in the late 1980s in favor of workstations by firms like Sun Microsystems and Apollo. Mentor Graphics, one of the three leading electronic design automation (EDA) businesses, stated in 2013 that it would start paying a quarterly dividend. In 1999, James Ready quit Mentor to create the embedded Linux business MontaVista. When Accelerated Technology Inc. was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2002, Neil Henderson joined the company. Following the purchase of Project Technology in 2004, Stephen Mellor, a pioneer in the UML field and co-creator of the Shlaer-Mellor design approach, joined the company.

Mentor Graphics
Image source: www.ascenderhcm.com

Acquisitions

Between 1995-2015, It acquired several companies, including Microtec Research, VeriBest, Accelerated Technology, Innoveda, Project Technology, Tanner EDA, LogicVision, and Calypto Design Systems. In 2008, Cadence Design Systems made a leveraged buyout proposal to takeover Mentor Graphics in June 2008. Later, Cadence retracted this offer, citing its inability to secure the required funding and Mentor Graphics’ management and reluctance to consider it. In 2016, the company announced that Siemens would be acquiring it for $4.5 billion. 

Founder – Tom Bruggere

Tom Bruggere founded Mentor Graphics in 1981. In the early to mid-1970s, Bruggere worked as an engineer for Burroughs Corporation Medium Systems Plant in California, and in the late 1970s, he worked with Tektronix, Inc. He has held positions on the advisory committees of Mercy Corps, Technology Management Program at UCSB, OpenMarket, Will Vinton Studios, and Sirigen. He holds degrees in business administration from Pepperdine University; a master’s in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, and a bachelor’s of arts in mathematics from the University of California.

CEO – Wally Rhines

Before the Siemens acquisition, Wally Rhines served as the company’s CEO and president until November 2018. In 1993, Rhines took over as CEO of Mentor Graphics, which had a yearly revenue of around $340 million. In 2011, the business’s revenue surpassed $1 billion for the first time. Rhines has guided the corporation into new business ventures, such as software for the automotive industry.

Bechtle

Bechtle – A German-based IT Company That Took A Spark In The Campus Of Heilbronn University.

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Bechtle AG is a multinational company with its headquarters based in Neckarsulm, Germany. The company mainly offers IT services in direct link with the sale of hardware and software IT products. Bechtle has a diversified client base, hence it is also responsible for the operation and maintenance of various IT infrastructures including the public sector. Founded in 1983, currently it has a massive business spread globally with 80 system houses. It has established e-commerce companies in fourteen European countries and nearly 70 different locations in german-speaking regions. The main business factor that makes a company adaptable for every type/size of business is its blend of IT product sales with integrations services. 

Founding Bechtle

The idea of founding Bechtle took a spark in the campus of Heilbronn University with Klaus von Jan, Ralf Klenk and Gerhard Schick. These members of the university founded Bechtle GmbH EDV-Technik on 21st July 1983 as a microbusiness. They started the company from inside the campus and initially focused on programming technical calculation software for commercial purposes. In the first fiscal year, the company earned 66,000 German marks. After a couple of years, Bechtle became a certified IBM distributor and the team shifted to a bigger office. With six people running the company, the annual revenue climbed up to 2,245,000 German marks by the end of 1985. 

Bechtle
Image Source: www.shopstrategen.de

Expansion

By the end of the 1980s, Bechtle already established itself as a market leader. IBM recognized the company as Quality Dealer of the Year three times in a row and it also expanded the team and became a company with a total of 37 employees. By the end of 1989, the revenue of the company became 13,015,000 German marks. With the advent of a new decade, the company focused on campaigning and branding as it was crossing regional borders. In 1992, Bechtle became one of Southern Germany’s largest system integrators. The number of employees became 85. One of the turning points in the history of the company’s growth was in 1993 as two of its main competitors were bankrupt. Bechtle seized this opportunity to expand in more locations and also hired executive members from prominent IT companies. 

Two years down the line, Bechtle focused on taking the company online and launched its website. In the same year, Amazon and eBay were also founded in the US. After launching the company in the e-commerce market, it soon became a pioneer and also started making acquisitions. It expanded to a few locations like northern Baden-Württemberg and Leipzig and the outcome was a three-fold increase in the annual revenue. From 1995 to 1996, the company doubled its employees. In the same year, Bechtle was recognized as one of the top five IT system houses in Germany. Also, in the same year, Bechtle first opened an international office in Switzerland. 

Present Days

In 2000, the company went for an IPO and the capital from the shares was used to expand in France and Belgium. In 2004, the company reached a new milestone of surpassing the 1 billion euros revenue mark. The company moved to its new headquarters in Neckarsulm. In 2004, it made four new acquisitions to add more locations to the company’s list. In 2008, Bechtle celebrated its 25th anniversary, and the business expanded to Ireland and Austria. The international expansion continued as it opened the business in Portugal, Poland, Hungary, and several other countries. In 2014, Bechtle became the top IT system house in Germany. Bechtle currently has more than 12,000 employees and it is impressively growing in terms of revenue even in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Thomas Olemotz – CEO of Bechtle

Thomas Olemotz is currently the CEO of Bechtle and has worked with 11 different companies. Some of the companies where Olemotz worked before joining Bechtle are Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mittelstandsberatung, Delton AG, and Microlog Logistics AG. He joined the company in 2007 and became the CEO of the company in 2010. He also played his role as Spokesman of the Executive Board and CFO at Bechtle. 

Datto

Austin McChord, Started by making the device in the parent’s basement to get the “Unicorn” status.

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Austin McChord, a software programmer, created Datto in 2007 in Connecticut. In 2017, the company was merged with Autotask Corporation and it became a subsidiary of Vista Equity Partners. Based in the software sector, Datto specializes in cybersecurity and data backup. Currently, the company has approximately 1,600 members and is led by Tim Weller (CEO of Datto). The company is known for developing both hardware and software products required for data recovery purposes. Datto started expanding to international markets in 2013 and currently, it has customers across the globe.

About Datto

Datto is a leading provider of cloud-based software and security products that are delivered by managed service providers. Datto’s solutions in various domains help its network of MSP Partners serve more than a million businesses worldwide. The products developed by Datto help the MSPs to protect both small and medium-sized businesses against threats.

Datto offers subscription-based pricing models so that there are multiple choices for different types of customers. But, the main focus of Datto is to enable MSP growth. When Austin McChord established Datto he used to sell self-made data backup devices. From that to becoming a unicorn, Datto has grown massively in a few years.

Datto
Image source: techtalk.needonsite.com

The Backstory of the Company

The idea of building a data recovery company came to Austin’s mind when he first developed a backup device in his parent’s basement. He used a LEGO brick to complete the first iteration of the product. After successfully building the backup device, Austin went ahead with the plan of founding Datto and thus started selling hand-made data backup devices. He landed his first customer in 2008 and eventually he was able to build a system that would allow data synchronization between two companies. Later, he successfully built a version of Zenith Infotech.

The sales started increasing slowly and by the end of 2009, the company made $70,000 in monthly sales. In 2010, Datto released a new product but unfortunately, it led to the crash of old computer systems. So, a replacement product was built from scratch to replace the new one and it was called SIRIS. The sales of the company were pretty much stagnant during this period and the company finally rolled out SIRIS as a free upgrade. In 2011, the sales started increasing rapidly and hit $9 million and the next year it increased to $25 million.

Success and Expansion

The funding round of the company started in 2013. In the first round of venture capital financing, Datto raised $25 million. This round was led by General Catalyst Partners. By this time also the company was focusing on various small and medium-sized businesses with clients such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and several NFL teams. In 2014, Datto purchased a cloud-to-cloud backup company called Backupify. In 2015, the company’s series B funding round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures and it was able to raise $75 million. In the same year, the company also gained the “unicorn” status and became the only company in Connecticut to earn it. After the series B funding round, the company expanded to the Australian and New Zealand markets.

The acquisitions continued as in early 2017 the company acquired Open Mesh. Later in that year, the company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and the deal was closed for approximately $1.5 billion. The company then merged with Autotask Corporation and Austin became the CEO of the merged company. But he stepped down from his position in 2018 and his place was taken by Tim Weller. In 2020, Datto became a public company and sold 22 million shares to raise $594 million in its IPO.

Austin McChord – Founder of Datto

Austin McChord is a computer engineer and an entrepreneur who became famous after founding Datto. He initially pursued electrical engineering at the Rochester University of Technology. When he was 21-year old, he developed a data backup device from scratch in his father’s basement. Initially, when the company was landing its first few customers, he received a buyout offer for $100 million but turned it down. Instead, he tried to raise some funding and strengthen the foundation of the company.