Hyderabad-based FXLabs has acquired US-based Interactive Media Technology Inc, a startup company that owns an online casual games portal, for $3 million (close to Rs 12 crore) in stock for ownership. FXLabs' move is targetted at becoming the country's leading end-to-end solutions provider in the overseas gaming industry besides the emerging Indian gaming market.Founded three years back, FXLabs currently owns a game development laboratory in Hyderabad with 150 people working on various PC/console-based high-end game projects. The company is also creating a facility in Chennai from where another 20 people will operate. It has lined up three games, one of them based on the movie Dhoom 2, scheduled for a launch in January, April and June next year.The US company owns and operates Knibble.com, the online gaming portal which has aggregated over 10,500 casual games from various sources on the internet, and is claimed to be a 'Google' for games in the making. Besides the gaming portal, Interactive Media brings a host of technologies, including a game aggregator, into the FXLabs' fold.FXLabs chairman Sashi P Reddi, also founder chairman and CEO of the $75-million software company, AppLabs, said Knibble.com would provide the company access to an important space of the online gaming segment, the other two segments being games for PC/consoles and mobile games. Revenue generation from both FXLabs and Knibble.com would start from next year. The company would approach venture capitalists to raise funds required for ramping up the operations, he added.Under the deal, Sashi Chimala, founder & CEO, Interactive Media Technology, would be given about 17% equity in FXLabs. He would be the third player to own stake in FXLabs, the other two being Sashi Reddi himself and Suresh Productions, a leading movie production house based in Hyderabad.
