Keywords Studios acquires Coconut Lizard in £2m deal

Company makes first acquisition since recent raising £100m in a placing last month

Dublin-headquartered but London-listed video game specialist Keywords Studios has acquired Cononut LIzard in a £2 million (€ 2.2 million) deal and advised of further acquisitions over the coming months.

Based in Gateshead in northern England, Coconut Lizard is a well-regarded provider of game development engineering services. Founded by gaming veteran Robert Troughton, provides a range of services including game optimisation, game hardening, game porting and middleware integration for the Unreal Engine game development suite. Its clients include Microsoft's Rare studio.

Coconut Lizard generated revenues of over £1.5 million for the 12 months ending March 31st and adjusted earnings, interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda) of £350,000. The business has added 10 developers to its team since January to take total employees to 29 with more expected to be added.

The deal is Keyword’s first acqusition since it successfully raised £100 million last month in a placing.

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"We expect to complete further acquisitions over the months ahead from the strong and attractive pipeline of opportunities that we are currently reviewing," said Keywords chief executive Andrew Day.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist