Irish software firm MobileAware has acquired US company BroadBeam in an all-share transaction.
Kevin McCloskey, chief executive of MobileAware, declined to place a value on the transaction. However, he pointed out that BroadBeam was sold as a going concern and has $4 million (€3.2 million) in cash on its balance sheet.
The new company will employ 70 people, with 28 staff making the transition from BroadBeam.
Broadbeam's senior management have left the company following the acquisition but Mr McCloskey said the main assets it was purchasing were BroadBeam's products, development team, US presence and blue-chip clients.
Broadbeam's headquarters in Cranbury, New Jersey, will now become MobileAware's US headquarters, but Mr McCloskey stressed that MobileAware would remain an Irish-headquartered firm.
He said he expected the deal to be earnings-enhancing to MobileAware within 12 months and he expected to get the two companies' products working together within three months.
Following meetings with BroadBeam's customers he also predicted that US telco BellSouth would be the first customer to use both products.
The two companies began to look at how they could work together 18 months ago and Mr McCloskey said MobileAware first made overtures about a takeover at the end of last summer.
He said that, although both companies worked in the wireless space, their technology was complementary rather than competing.
MobileAware's products allow mobile phone companies and large companies to deliver web content to a wide range of mobile handsets. In contrast BroadBeam is a mobile workforce application specialist that supports relatively few devices.
Its key capability is ensuring a reliable connection between a worker's handheld device and the back-end systems.
By adding this software to its portfolio Mr McCloskey said MobileAware will be able to deploy its technology in environments where the customer cannot afford to have any loss of communications.
"By bringing the two products together we will have a single framework for mobile data services across all lines of business," said Mr McCloskey. "No other wireless company approaches it in the same strategic way. It's a logical extension of the web services model."
The deal is significant in that it is the first major international acquisition by an Irish software company for a number of years.
Irish technology firms have instead been the target of foreign companies, with Stockbyte and Similarity Systems the most recent companies to be acquired.
Last month, Stockbyte, the Tralee-based digital images library, was sold to Getty Images for €109 million. At the start of the year Similarity Systems was sold to Nasdaq-quoted Informatica for €45.4 million. It is understood the MobileAware transaction is not in the price-range of either of these deals.
BroadBeam claims to have the largest number of enterprise mobile deployments worldwide and more than 300 companies use its software, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, FedEx Ground, Hertz, Indesit, London Ambulance Service, SBC Communications and Telia.
Both companies have raised significant funding from venture capitalists in the past. BroadBeam raised $44 million (€35 million) in external funding, including a $29 million round of financing with a group of investors led by ABS Capital Partners in 2000.
MobileAware also carried out several fundraisers, including a €7 million round in 2002, which valued the company at around €20 million. Investors included Bank of America Capital Partners, AIB Equity, the VC arm of chip manufacturer Intel and Denis O'Brien's Island Capital.
Cross Atlantic Capital Partners held a stake in both companies through two different funds it manages, but it is unlikely to have had much influence on the deal, given that it held just 2.5 per cent of BroadBeam stock.
