Altair spent 32 years as a private company before it sold a single share. Three engineers started it in 1985 near Detroit, the home of the car industry. Their software let designers bend, crash and heat-test a part on a screen before they built it. Carmakers, aircraft makers and electronics companies used it to cut the costly cycle of build, break and rebuild. Altair listed on Nasdaq in November 2017.

Three Engineers Near Detroit

James Scapa, George Christ and Mark Kistner founded Altair in Michigan in 1985 as an engineering consulting firm. Their work for automakers turned into software, and the software became the business. Its tools model how a part behaves under stress, heat or a crash, and they help designers strip out weight while keeping a part strong. Altair, based in Troy, Michigan, sold licenses as a pool of units that customers could spend across its whole catalog.

Up 41 Percent, Then Siemens

Altair priced its offering at $13 a share and raised about $156 million. The stock started trading on Nasdaq as ALTR on November 1, 2017, and closed its first day at $18.31, up 41 percent. Altair grew into data analytics and high-performance computing as simulation work moved to bigger machines. Siemens agreed to buy the company in 2024. It closed the deal in March 2025 at an enterprise value of about $10 billion.

Cover: The Eagle of St. John, Martin Schongauer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an eagle (Altair, the brightest star in the Eagle constellation).