Particle was born in 2013 to make it easier for innovative people and companies to build intelligent, connected devices. Since then, more than 250,000 developers have used Particle’s development kits, developer tools, and cloud services to imagine and bring to life thousands of new products. Today, Particle powers everything from smart hot tubs to connected lobster boats, and our customers use us to do everything from reducing methane emissions on oil fields to improving yield on vineyards and citrus farms.
And still, more than a decade later, it feels like we’re just getting started. Microcontrollers and embedded processors keep getting more powerful. Wireless connectivity keeps getting more ubiquitous and affordable. We’re only now starting to capture the kind of real-world data that will power the next generations of autonomous systems and robotics. As silicon, software, and connectivity evolve, more real-world problems become solvable — but the stack keeps getting heavier and more complex. There’s still so much work to do to make these technologies accessible to people and companies who don’t have trillion-dollar market caps.
When I founded Particle (then Spark), I knew we were at the beginning of a multi-decade journey. We’re one decade in, with many more ahead of us, and it’s time for us to evolve past being a venture-backed startup and into a permanent home where we can keep pushing toward the dream of connecting the physical world.
Today, I’m excited to announce that Particle is being acquired by Digi — the creators of XBee and originators of accessible wireless radios. Digi has been at it for forty years, and I couldn’t ask for a better home to help us keep innovating for the next forty.
Full circle: it all began with XBee
Imagine you’re a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 27-year-old entrepreneur who wants to build a smart lightbulb in 2012. Where do you start? Arduino had a cumbersome, expensive Wi-Fi shield that barely worked and wasn’t going to scale down in cost or size. The ESP32 didn’t exist yet, nor did its predecessor, the ESP8266. Wireless radios and protocols were locked behind multi-million-dollar licensing agreements; if you didn’t have a billion-dollar balance sheet or a friendly relationship with a silicon executive, good luck getting anywhere.
There was exactly one option available: the XBee from Digi.
On April 28, 2012, I bought an O’Reilly book called Building Wireless Sensor Networks by Rob Faludi, which was the only book I could find that explained how to do the kind of thing I was trying to do. That book, along with the XBee, got me started down this road. I had no electrical engineering knowledge beyond what I learned online and in that book, but because the XBee was so easy to use, that was enough.
One can derive most of my early entrepreneurial journey by browsing my Amazon order history from 2012 through 2013
My first prototype, complete with an XBee breakout board (not pictured here: the XBee itself). Yes that’s connected to a light socket. Yes I electrocuted myself. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.
While the XBee got me off the ground, it was designed for local communications over a Zigbee network. I wanted to connect my product to Wi-Fi and control it remotely via a cloud service and developer API. I swapped out the XBee for a Wi-Fi chip and quickly discovered that nobody had greased the skids for Wi-Fi and cloud-connected devices the way Digi had for Zigbee. After the lightbulb project crashed and burned, we pivoted to build exactly that product: the Spark Core, heavily inspired by Digi’s XBee.
The moment that we started down the road we’re on today: the Kickstarter campaign for the Spark Core, which raised nearly $600,000 to fund the development of the first affordable and accessible Wi-Fi development kit.
The Spark Core put us on the map. It also enabled us to raise venture funding to expand beyond development kits and into cloud services that power intelligent devices deployed at scale. Our aspirations went beyond prototyping; we wanted to break the mold of the maker movement and empower people and companies building real products.
Fast forward to 2026, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Particle now generates more than $20M of ARR selling our edge-to-cloud infrastructure for intelligent devices. We’ve built a profitable, growing business that empowers innovators and democratizes access to complex technologies. But we still had one obstacle to overcome: earning the right to do what we do forever.
Until today, Particle was a venture-backed startup. I’m grateful that so many companies have trusted us to power their products at scale, but as those relationships have deepened, some customers have shared a growing anxiety about what would happen when we “exit.” Would Particle be taken over by new owners with different goals? Would the platform cease to exist, or change so dramatically that it would no longer meet their needs?
And so we come full circle to Digi: the originators of accessible wireless radios, the inspiration for our business, and now our home.
Digi: 40 years of innovation
If you’re like me, you probably equate Digi with XBee; the product that captured the hearts and minds of a wide range of engineers and innovators with its familiar, bug-like form factor.
But XBee is only one product in a much broader portfolio that dates back to the 1980s, when Digi got its start making accessories for personal computers. Their business expanded into what used to be called M2M (Machine to Machine) and is now called IoT.
Over decades, Digi and the businesses it has acquired have built a wide range of products, software, and services, from embedded processors and radios like XBee to off-the-shelf products and solutions. Digi generates more than $400M in annual revenue, more than $100M of ARR, and more than $100M of EBITDA. They are a stable mainstay of the industry, and joining them means we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
Just as important as their history is their approach to the market. Digi does what we do. We’re made of the same cloth. Particle is not a side project at Digi; we’re joining their largest business unit (IoT Solutions), where we’ll make our cloud services available to their portfolio of embedded systems. We’ll also work together to continue designing and developing new generations of development kits, modules, and single-board computers.
Today, as I start my first day at Digi, I’ll be learning more about their 40-year history of innovation. But I’m most excited to work with them to define the plan for the next 40. The future is bright for Particle and our customers.
What this means for our customers
If you’re a Particle customer, your first question is probably: what happens now? Will anything change? Will you keep supporting us the way you have for the last decade?
Nothing is changing about what we do today. We’ll support all customers and products the same way we always have — just with more resources, broader reach, and a longer view. Our cloud services will continue to evolve and expand, and we’ll keep bringing new devices to market while supporting our existing portfolio.
In the near future, we’ll add support for Digi’s devices to our cloud service where it makes sense. If you’re a Particle customer, that means more options as your needs change and expand. If you’re a Digi customer, we can’t wait to show you what we’ve built.
If you’re a developer using our development kits and single-board computers for prototyping, nothing changes. I’m sure we’ll have new things to share once we’ve settled in. No specific plans to announce yet, but you’ll be the first to know.
If you have questions, send them through the regular channels. We’re here to answer them, and you’ll be hearing more from us once we’ve settled in.
Zach Supalla
Founder of Particle