Corona Labs – the company behind the cross-platform app development platform Corona SDK – has acquired cloud services provider Game Minion.

Game Minion provides a Backend as a Service for mobile developers, including analytics, cross-platform multiplayer, leaderboards, push notifications, achievements and cloud storage.

From now on, this offering will be known as Corona Cloud, and will be available to all mobile developers, whether they make use of the Corona SDK or not.

The complete package

"Game Minion has focused on building services that greatly simplify the amount of work needed to fulfil developers' backend needs," explained Game Minion co-founder Mohamed Hamedi.

"Through this acquisition, we will provide the most complete end-to-end mobile development platform on the market. Features that would normally require the integration of half a dozen SDKs will be offered by Corona Labs in just one, neatly-packaged API."

Corona Cloud is currently operating in a closed beta phase, and is expected to officially launch in Q1 2013.

One thousand percent

Although Corona Labs opted not to disclose the details of its latest acquisition, CEO Walter Luh issued a statement emphasising the deal's significance for developers – particularly those already making use of Corona SDK.

"The mobile industry is evolving at an incredible speed and developers need to deal with increased complexity each day. Our acquisition of Game Minion allows us to extend the Corona vision and philosophy to the cloud, providing developers with a complete end-to-end platform."

"The efficiency of Corona SDK developers, already 10 times that of their peers, will only increase with the power of Corona Cloud," Luh claimed.

To find out more about Corona Cloud and the Corona SDK, visit the Corona Labs website.