Tuesday, January 20, 2009

GenArts buys British visual effects software firm

By Mass High Tech staff

GenArts Inc., a Cambridge-based visual effects software company geared toward the film, broadcast and video industries, has bought U.K. visual effects software firm SpeedSix Software Ltd. The acquisition goes into effect today and includes the transfer of all SpeedSix employees to GenArts, though they will remain in the U.K.

As part of the deal, SpeedSix’s Monsters and Raptors visual effects plug-ins will be sold with GenArts’ Sapphire Plug-ins, a collection of more than 200 image processing and synthesis effects, GenArts officials reported. Monsters and Raptors enables lens distortion matching, particle effects, retiming and fluid backgrounds.

GenArts has been pursuing an aggressive acquisition and strategic partnership plan since Katherine Hays took over as CEO in June and Insight Venture Partners, a New York-based private equity and venture capital firm, invested an undisclosed amount of capital in February.

GenArts was founded in 1996 by Karl Sims. Hays, co-founder and former chief operating officer of Massive Inc., took the CEO reins last year.