Video game software company bought for £3m

Cheshire-based software company d3t has been acquired by Keyword Studios, the international technical services provider to the global video games industry, for £3m.

Founded in 2011 by Jamie Campbell and Stephen Powell and employing 44 staff, d3t delivers premium quality outsourced software development services for video game developers and publishers.

Its clients include SEGA, Codemasters, Sony XDev and the BBC.

Campbell and Powell and the rest of their team will remain with the business.

In the year ended July, 2017, Northwich company d3t achieved revenues of £2.8m and an underlying adjusted pre-tax profit of £0.4m.

Under the terms of the acquisition London-based Keywords is paying £2.4m in cash and the issue of 42,368 new ordinary shares in Keywords, which will be subject to a two-year lock in period.

Campbell said: “d3t was founded with the sole aim of being an invaluable external development partner to the games industry and other interactive sectors.

“Over the course of six years we have become leaders in the field of high-value engineering offering a professional, wide ranging service.

“We feel there is a great deal of synergy with Keywords’ strategy to be the very best technical service provider to the video games industry, and we look forward to our continued expansion as part of the group.”

Keyword chief executive Giacomo Duranti said: “The acquisition of d3t complements our recent acquisition GameSim’s capabilities to extend the services, scale and geographical presence of our Engineering offering.

“With increasing demand in the video games industry for reliable, high-quality outsourced software engineering services, we are building a strong offering to support our clients globally.”