WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GelSight, a pioneer in tactile intelligence technology, today announced a global partnership agreement with Hexagon, a global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software, and autonomous technologies. The partnership will enable the companies’ respective teams to promote and sell GelSight’s tactile sensing products, as well as future integrated products to the market.

“We know that customers are looking for comprehensive solutions to solve common manufacturing and surface inspection challenges, and we believe this partnership will lead to powerful solutions that more effectively meet these needs.”

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Following GelSight’s win at Hexagon’s second Sixth Sense open innovation platform last year, GelSight and Hexagon have now established this global reseller agreement for GelSight’s product line, including the GelSight Mobile and GelSight Max. The formal partnership and collaboration between GelSight and Hexagon will also accelerate the time to market for future products that offer more complete solutions to pressing manufacturing issues, such as the shortage of qualified labor.

Hexagon’s vast portfolio of metrology technologies measure the dimensions or digitize the surface to inform quality, maintenance processes and smart manufacturing. GelSight provides complementary digital touch technology that can characterize surface roughness and measure defects such as scratches and dents with micron-level resolution. GelSight’s technology is well suited to operate in uncontrolled lighting environments that rely heavily on manual inspection by line workers, especially with traditionally difficult-to-characterize materials like glass and highly reflective metals.

“GelSight’s products and technologies are complementary to Hexagon’s, which makes selling bundles and integrated products a natural fit in order to enable unique solutions that few on the market can match,” said Youssef Benmokhtar, CEO at GelSight. “We know that customers are looking for comprehensive solutions to solve common manufacturing and surface inspection challenges, and we believe this partnership will lead to powerful solutions that more effectively meet these needs.”

In addition, the combination of GelSight and Hexagon technologies unlocks new applications that digitize previously tedious, manual inspection processes. For example, mounting a GelSight Mobile device on a Hexagon robotic arm will fully automate customer workflows for shot peen analysis on safety-critical parts such as aircraft landing gear. Additionally, GelSight’s tactile sensors will bring surface roughness analysis solutions to Hexagon’s portfolio and GelSight’s AI Toolbox enables perceptual quality measurements.

“We are thrilled to partner with GelSight after the potential the team showcased as part of the second Sixth Sense cohort, and the impressive progress the company has made since winning last year’s competition,” said Milan Kocic, Senior Director, Sixth Sense at Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division. “Sixth Sense was created to nurture and support startups that address the growing demand for disruptive innovation in manufacturing, and this agreement with GelSight is a great example of how our platform can offer valuable opportunities to breakthrough technologies.”

Benmokhtar will be featured as a speaker at this year’s Sixth Sense event as part of a Fireside Chat on Powerful Partnerships, sharing how the Sixth Sense program unlocks opportunities for its cohort members. The event will take place on Wednesday, February 7 at 2:30pm GMT at CodeNode in London, EC2M 7EB. The hybrid event is free to attend, both virtually and in-person. Learn more about the event and sign up here.

About GelSight
GelSight is a pioneer in digital, imaging-based tactile intelligence. The proprietary technology that was invented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides extremely detailed and rapid surface characterization, enabling several surface measurement applications and robotic sensing capabilities. Its elastomeric 3D imaging systems are currently in use in aerospace, automotive, forensics and in many robotic research labs throughout the world. GelSight is Digital Touch and Feel. For more information, please visit https://gelsight.com/.

About Hexagon
Hexagon is the global leader in digital reality solutions, combining sensor, software and autonomous technologies. We are putting data to work to boost efficiency, productivity, quality and safety across industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, public sector, and mobility applications.

Our technologies are shaping production and people related ecosystems to become increasingly connected and autonomous – ensuring a scalable, sustainable future. Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division provides solutions that use data from design and engineering, production and metrology to make manufacturing smarter. For more information, visit hexagon.com/mi.

Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has approximately 24,500 employees in 50 countries and net sales of approximately 5.4bn EUR. Learn more at hexagon.com and follow us @HexagonAB.