The company joins the Velaris family of existing brands – Skalar Analytical, LCTech, PromoChrom, EST Analytical, GERSTEL and TE Instruments – expanding Velaris’ product and service capabilities and global presence.
Velaris, a platform of laboratory-automation brands backed by global investment firm Battery Ventures, today announced the acquisition of Markes International (“Markes”).
Markes, founded in 1997, in Bridgend, Wales is a recognized global provider of specialist analytical technologies that enhance the sensitivity, separation and interpretive power of gas chromatography (GC) and GC–mass spectrometry (GC–MS).
Through complementary strengths in sample preparation, sample introduction, advanced chromatographic separation, mass spectrometry and data processing, Markes supports laboratories worldwide addressing increasingly complex analytical challenges across environmental, food, security, industrial and life science end markets. Working with their distribution channels, Markes enables a generation of reliable, high-quality data and deeper analytical insight to support informed decision-making in demanding scientific and regulatory environments.
Joining Velaris’ existing brands, Markes provides a complementary product offering for commercial, academic and government laboratories worldwide. The strength of the company in Europe and North America together with local assembly in China will enhance Velaris’ presence and greatly expand regional sales and service capabilities.
“Markes has built a strong position through innovation, technical excellence and the dedication of our talented teams earning the trust of customers worldwide. Joining the Velaris family marks an important milestone in our journey, creating a compelling platform to work alongside a group of complementary businesses and expand our capabilities. This combination strengthens our ability to support our customers and the markets we serve, while creating meaningful development opportunities for our people,” said Nigel Fry, CEO of Markes.
“Markes is recognised worldwide as a leading global designer and manufacturer of advanced, high performance analytical instrumentation and software for challenging GC & GC-MS analyses, and this is an excellent extension of Velaris’ market leadership,” said Amod Kher, CEO of Velaris. “The brand represents technical leadership in thermal desorption and adjacent separation technologies and is committed to providing the best products and application support to end users. We look forward to working with the management and associates of Markes as we build on the strong foundation that it has established in this attractive growth market.”
“As we approach three years since our initial investment in Skalar Analytical, we are pleased to see the various acquisitions come together to form a cohesive group under the Velaris brand,” said Zack Smotherman, a Battery general partner who serves on Velaris’ board. “We are excited to add Markes to Velaris as we continue building a unified portfolio of complementary analytical instrumentation and automated sample preparation technologies and believe the reorganization under the Velaris brand will help simplify the story by aligning our offerings by end markets.”
