Radiant is in the business of building cameras that measure light and color, which are used by manufacturers of flat-panel screens to detect flaws.
Radiant Vision Systems, a Redmond maker of industrial light sensors, has been bought by a Japanese company.
Konica Minolta, a Tokyo-based maker of printers and other business and industrial devices, said Wednesday it had agreed to buy Radiant. The purchase price is expected to be about $241 million, according to Japanese news service Nikkei.
Representatives of Radiant and owner Evergreen Pacific Partners, a Seattle private equity firm, weren’t able to confirm the figure, and no one answered the telephone number for Konica’s U.S. headquarters in New Jersey.
Radiant builds cameras designed to measure light and color, tools sold primarily to makers of flat-panel screens who use them to automate the process of detecting flaws in the screens of smartphones and other devices.
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Cathy McBeth, a marketing manager with Radiant, said she wasn’t aware of any plans to reduce the company’s head count or shutter any operations after the deal’s expected close in August.
“What I do know is, historically, and from all [Konica’s] communications, the plan is to run us as a subsidiary,” she said. “So we don’t expect significant changes. We are still hiring. There’s no plan to slow down.”
For Konica, the addition of Radiant will expand the company’s presence in the growing field of automated manufacturing measurement tools and broaden its reach on the West Coast, the company said in a statement. On its website, Konica lists sales offices in Bellevue and Federal Way.
Radiant, founded in 1992 by Ron Rykowski, an alumnus of an early California maker of business personal computers, has been owned by Evergreen since Rykowski and other investors sold the company in 2011. Rykowski remains chief technology officer.
Radiant has about 100 employees, including 60 at its Redmond headquarters, with the rest spread among satellite offices in China and South Korea, along with some roving salespeople.
Konica operates in 150 countries and employs about 41,000 people.
In its most recent fiscal year, the company earned $299 million in net income on $9.25 billion in sales.
Evergreen, the private equity firm, invests in midsized companies in western North America. It manages about $700 million in assets.