The history of Altium dates to 1985 with the founding of Protel Systems Pty Ltd by electronics designer Nicholas Martin.

The company launched its first product in 1985, a DOS-based printed circuit board (PCB) layout and design tool.

FPGA, PCB and embedded software development processes were unified with a common project view and data model.

[11] In 2001, the company changed its name from Protel Systems to Altium and continued to expand throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

In 2010, Altium acquired Morfik Technology Pty Ltd., a developer of visual design tools for engineering and deploying cloud-based software applications.

[16] On October 15, 2012, the Altium board removed Nick Martin as CEO and named executive vice chairman Kayvan Oboudiyat to replace him.

[18] In May of the same year, Altium announced that the core R&D operations for its flagship PCB CAD tools would again relocate in a "cost neutral" move to San Diego, California.

[24][25] On 7 June 2021, it was revealed that Altium rejected a bid from Autodesk, who had already bought the EDA tool EAGLE in 2016,[26] valuing the company at A$5.05 billion.

[29] Altium develops software that is used for designing of electronic products including printed circuit board.