Brulines buys 66% Coin Metrics stake

Brulines, the beer-dispense monitoring company, has acquired a 66% stake in Coin Metrics for £685,000.

Coin Metrics, founded by Richard Adams and Ian Daintith in 2005, has developed a wireless data service that allows amusement and gaming machine operators to monitor performance of their machines in real time.

Brulines chief executive James Dickson said the acquisition will enable monitoring of vending machines and allow the study of AWP (Amusement with Prizes) machine patterns of usage. Quality of information has been very limited up until now.

"This gives us a solid platform to cross-sell and take a market-leading portfolio to a widening market.

"The acquisition enables Brulines to accelerate our growing (AWP) data-management business to market leadership through real-time remote download of data from AWP machines, while opening up applications and markets for the next generation of wireless data-capture systems such as vending," Dixon added.

Coin Metrics director and co-founder Ian Daintith said: "This acquisition represents a strategic step in the growth of the Coin Metrics business.

"Clearly a great technical and product synergy exists between the two organisations.

"This investment also allows Coin Metrics to accelerate the delivery of its ambitious plans within both the gaming and vending markets in the UK, whilst maintaining the high level of support and delivery expected by our existing customer base."

The lion's share of the deal was paid in cash, with a remaining balance of £62,250 accounted for with the issue of ordinary shares in Brulines, which is listed on Aim, London's junior market.