Dattus, a US-based industrial connectivity technology developer assisted by Purdue University’s Foundry accelerator, was acquired by manufacturing automation software provider Plex Systems for an undisclosed sum yesterday.

Founded in 2013 as Bearing Analytics, Dattus sells data aggregation tools to industrial clients to help them expediently monitor disparate information sources associated with the internet of things (IoT), such as sensors or connected machines.

The technology is designed to optimise performance, slash costs and maintain uptime at manufacturing plants. Features include a quality control dashboard with information on manufacturing conditions and risks of defective products.

Plex will use Dattus’ resources to bolster its manufacturing resource planning software, Plex Manufacturing Cloud, with enhancements in IoT areas including connectivity, data management and analysis.

Dattus’ technology has already been added to Plex’s industrial IoT strategy, and the corporate expects to announce details of products and packages later in 2018.

Dattus previously raised $1.4m of a targeted $1.9m equity round from undisclosed investors in 2016, according to a securities filing.

The company received support from Purdue Foundry and counts student entrepreneurship program Founder.org among its backers, together with Allos Ventures, CSA Partners, gener8tor, M25 Group and Countdown Ventures.

Richard Murray, chief product officer for Plex Systems, said: “Plex pioneered the connection of machines and sensors to the cloud, ushering in the industrial IoT.

“Dattus represents the next generation in industrial IoT and accelerates our mission to make machine connectivity as simple as adding a smart thermostat to your home.

“We see this as an opportunity for a major step forward in both connectivity and utilisation of machine data to drive efficiency, performance, and innovation on the shop floor.”