14 DAY TRIAL // Ageia Technologies, the developer of world's first physics processing units (PPUs) had to deny the allegations that it has been taken over, for the second time in less than half a year. The declaration comes shortly after rumors regarding a potential buyout started to break out on the forums.
Ageia spokespersons claim that the company continues to stay independent as it has a roadmap to stick to during this year. "We have no information about [the acquisition of Ageia]. There have been no changes [in the structure of investors]. As you know this kind of rumors pops up from time to time?" said Dan Forster, a spokesperson for Ageia Technologies.
The developers of the first hardware physics engine, called the PhysX have been around for quite some years, but their product never hit the top because of the scarce titles to fully support such kind of acceleration.
The company's success and financial stability has been under question mark for some time. Since the company did not manage to squeeze a fortune out of their hardware accelerator, it was assumed that the company was on hard financial times, and this is the most favorable time for buyouts.
At the moment, Ageia is owned by an investors group made of Apex Venture Partners, BA Venture Partners, HIG Ventures, Granite Global Ventures, CID Equity Partners, and VentureTech Alliance. Although such startups are prone to be either sold to other companies or made public, the decisional parts denied any changes in the company's ownership.
Ageia's PhysX engine is the industry's first hardware processing unit, and is used to offload the software physics processing from the CPUs and GPUs alike and rather process the instructions in house. The device can process vertexes in multiple threads, that allows game designers to develop detailed and smooth animation, as well as life-like movements, hair and especially, liquids.