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Indian outsourcing giant Quatrro buys Babel Media

From Brighton to Gurgaon

Indian outsourcing giant Quatrro buys Babel Media
UK-based games localisation, testing and quality assurance specialist Babel Media, which counts mobile companies such Vodafone, Glu, EA Mobile and Gameloft among its range of console, online and handheld clients, has been snapped up Quatrro BPO Solutions. It's the sixth acquisition for the expanding outsourcing giant, which was founded by Indian entepreneur Raman Roy and is headquartered in Gurgaon, India.

The size of the deal wasn't announced but is thought to be in the region of $30 million, and was funded partly by cash and partly by debt.

"This is our biggest acquisition in terms of profitability, topline and bottom line and I see this move as an intergral part of Quatrro's agenda of 'Going Beyond the Existing' and building strategically important businesses in undeserved and uncontested market spaces. With this acquisition, we have bought India into the gaming testing and localisation space," said Raman Roy.

As part of the transaction, Babel's co-founder Algy Williams, will take the role of a non executive director, while veteran EA vice president Richard Leinfellner - who recently set up EA's outsourcing operations in India - comes in as Babel CEO.

Babel employs over 500 staff and has offices in Brighton, Los Angeles, Montreal and New Delhi. Its mobile clients include Vodafone, Player X, Bandai Namco, THQ Wireless, Disney, EA Mobile, I-play, Orange, Motorola, Eidos, SEGA, Sony Pictures, Gameloft and Glu.

It offers services such as WAP portal assessment, Java and BREW porting, translation, functional and localisation QA, certification and deployment, and has ported over 2000 builds for North American and European clients in the past 12 months.
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.