Navico® announces acquisition of Yacht Defined and Investment in HOC Yachts

Navico © Andrew Golden / Rushton Gregory Communications

Navico – the world's largest manufacturer of marine electronics and parent company to the Lowrance®, Simrad® and B&G® brands – announced today that it has acquired Yacht Defined Sweden AB ("Yacht Defined"), an international, award-winning, modern and user-friendly technology platform within navigation and digital switching systems. At the same time, Navico has made an investment into HOC Yachts AB ("HOC Yachts"), a start-up, high-tech custom boat designer that will be used to showcase and validate Navico and Yacht Defined's developments in marine electronics, digital switching, boat integration and connectivity.

Established in 2016, Yacht Defined offers boaters an intuitive user interface for driving, living aboard and owning a boat. Acting as a central technology hub, the platform provides deep-system integration that delivers navigation display data optimization, remote control of onboard systems and entertainment, and vessel-wide over-the-air system updates, to name a few. The Yacht Defined system has been developed to deliver boaters the best possible user experience, making boating as intuitive as driving a car. It's also one of the first systems developed specifically with the boat builder channel in mind, eliminating many of the compromises required when creating products for other sales channels.

A designer of day cruisers and tenders, HOC Yachts was founded in 2014. Focused on elevating the user experience by producing boats that offer extraordinary unparalleled ease of operation, HOC prides itself on innovative design, using the highest quality components, and implementing groundbreaking technology, such as the Yacht Defined system and the innovative PetestepTM hull technology, to deliver a truly new and innovative boating experience. HOC Yachts' day cruisers and tenders have already received significant attention and praise in the media after their international launch at the Cannes Yachting Festival and Monaco Boat Show in the summer of 2017.

"We are pleased to welcome Yacht Defined and HOC Yachts to the Navico family," said Leif Ottosson, Navico CEO. "Both of these companies are leading the system integration revolution with dedication to pervasive vessel connectivity and communication technologies, and ushering in a new age of unparalleled user experience. We look forward to merging their combined know-how with our Naviop digital control and monitoring systems, across our Lowrance, Simrad and B&G product offerings, to bring exciting new solutions to all aspects of the marine electronics marketplace."

"For Yacht Defined and HOC Yachts, we believe Navico is the best industrial partner for the continued development of both our companies and validates that we have been successful in our efforts to drive innovation for the boating community," said Håkan Lindström, co-founder of HOC Yachts.

"We look forward to fully starting commercialization and collaboration efforts with Navico to continue developing new solutions for boaters," added Vilhelm Djurberg, co-founder and CEO of HOC Yachts.

With this acquisition, Navico continues to solidify its leadership position in vessel integration technologies.

For more information on Yacht Defined and HOC Yachts, visit www.yachtdefined.com and www.hocyachts.com, respectively. For more information on Navico's Lowrance, Simrad, Simrad Commercial and B&G brands, please visit www.lowrance.com, www.simrad-yachting.com, pro.simrad-yachting.com and www.bandg.com. To find out more about the Navico Group of companies, visit www.navico.com.