PARIS (Reuters) - French software company Dassault Systemes (>> Dassault Systèmes) has agreed to buy U.S. peer Exa Corp (>> Exa Corp) in a deal valued at about $400 million (350.78 million pounds), which Dassault said would boost its range of products for clients.

Exa said Dassault would offer $24.25 per share - a premium of about 43 percent compared to Exa's closing stock price of about $17 on Wednesday - to buy out its shares, and that the transaction valued Exa at about $400 million.

"With Exa's valuable application knowledge in transportationand mobility and other industry verticals, we will accelerate our delivery of industry solution experiences to benefit our existing and future customers," Dassault Systemes Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Bernard Charles said in a statement.

Exa's clients include the likes of carmakers BMW (>> Bayerische Motoren Werke), Tesla (>> Tesla) and Toyota (>> Toyota Motor Corp), as well as planemaker Embraer (>> Embraer SA).

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017, the companies said in a joint statement.

Dassault has embarked on several acquisitions so far this year, including buying a majority stake in the cloud computing software firm Outscale and purchasing Dutch company AITAC.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)