Fusion Corporate Partners

Google has acquired Bristish speech synthesis company Phonetic Arts. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mike Cohen, Manager, Speech Technology at Google, said, “There’s a particular focus right now in the U.K. on technology and innovation, and we’re delighted to be deepening our investment in the country with this acquisition. We already have a strong engineering center in London and look forward to welcoming Phonetic Arts to the team. We are excited about their technology, and while we don’t have plans to share yet, we’re confident that together we’ll move a little faster towards that Star Trek future.”

Phoentic Arts was founded Paul Taylor (CEO), Anthony Tomlinson (Vice President, Voice Production) and Ian Hodson (Vice President, Engineering) in 2006. All three were avid gamers and all three believed that games could only get better by the inclusion of dynamic speech. The 14 staff are all based in Cambridge.In 2000, Taylor co-founded Rhetorical Systems and sold to, speech recognition giant Nuance, in 2004.

UK, Cambridge & USA, Mountain View, CA

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Publishers Clearing House has acquired Funtank and its casual and branded gaming property Candystand.com. Funtank will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Publishers Clearing House and maintain its current offices in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. Funtank will continue to be led by co-founders, James Baker and Scott Tannen. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Candystand and the Funtank team will be key in driving Publishers Clearing House’s social, mobile and web game development capabilities and provide our advertisers with more scale and reach across the online gaming audience,” said Josh Glantz, vice president and general manager of PCH Online. “We look forward to combining our unique media offerings as well as promotional and sweepstakes expertise with their creativity to reach new audiences, deliver new experiences and develop new businesses. Integrating Candystand into our offerings will also enhance our ability to deliver a wider range of opportunities for consumers to play and win in addition to our traditional sweepstakes.”

Candystand.com was acquired by Funtank from Wrigley in 2008. Since its launch by Nabisco’s Life Savers Company in 1997, the site has built a substantial audience by delivering online games of the highest quality. In most cases, these games are branded and sponsored by some of the world’s top brands. By adding the Funtank team to its fold, Publishers Clearing House strengthens its emerging casual gaming business, enhances its unique advertising offerings and will help to attract, retain and build even bigger audiences across the web as well as social and mobile platforms.

“Joining forces with Publishers Clearing House will be outstanding for our Company, our clients and most importantly, our users,” said Funtank president and co-founder Scott Tannen. “We look forward to working with them to not only extend the reach and visibility of our integrated marketing programs, but to also bring our loyal audiences loads of new content and ways to win. In concert with the PCH team, the Candystand and Funtank brands will aggressively expand into the mobile and social media spaces, creating unparalleled branding entertainment opportunities for our clients.”

USA, New York, NY

Social game developer SunGame Corp. has signed a letter-of-intent to merge with Nevada-based Freevi Corporation. The merged entity will be renamed Freevi Corporation.

The merger is a strategic fit for both companies. Freevi will utilize SunGame’s technical resources both for its expansion into the exploding virtual game market as well as its current product development, and will be trading as a reporting company on the OTC:BB market. SunGame gains from the massive potential exposure Freevi will bring when it launches on a wide scale in 2011.

The company will maintain a joint board and executive team led by Guy Robert, CEO of SunGame, Ranulf Goss, IT Director, SunGame, and Neil Chandran, President of Freevi.

USA, Los Angeles, CA

Kabam, a leading developer of real games for social networks best known for creating the breakout social game, Kingdoms of Camelot, has acquired high-end social game developer, WonderHill. The San Francisco-based WonderHill developed the strategy social game Dragons of Atlantis and other quality games including the popular Facebook game Tattoo City and the MySpace title GreenSpot. Under the arrangement, WonderHill will officially become Kabam’s San Francisco studio, adding experienced development talent, IP, and over 2 million monthly active players to Kabam’s rapidly growing portfolio.

“Due to the traction of our strategy game, Dragons of Atlantis, we’ve been called on by a large number of potential acquirers”.

“WonderHill’s talent, analytics technology, and culture of quality game development fits extremely well with our existing approach and portfolio,” said Kabam CEO Kevin Chou. “WonderHill’s new direction in Flash-based strategy games with Dragons of Atlantis makes them a perfect complement to Kabam as we aggressively grow our business in deeply engaging social games. With our recent infusion of seasoned executive leadership, we have a solid foundation in place to integrate outstanding development talent like WonderHill.”

WonderHill founders James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky will stay on as advisors while the development team of approximately 25 will transition into Kabam employees. The new Kabam San Francisco will complement Kabam’s Redwood City headquarters by continuing to build titles like Dragons of Atlantis while also creating new, yet to be announced projects that will aid in further building out Kabam’s diverse portfolio of real social games.

“Due to the traction of our strategy game, Dragons of Atlantis, we’ve been called on by a large number of potential acquirers,” said WonderHill CEO James Currier. “Kabam’s strategy to focus on deep strategy games is the same as ours, so rather than competing, combining with them gives us both a better shot to build the dominant company in the space. They’ve got the right culture, the right focus, and enormous momentum. We’re proud to be associated with these guys. Watch this space.”

With the acquisition, Kabam continues its explosive growth. The company has expanded from 20 employees in one office at the beginning of 2010 to over 200 staff in four offices on three continents today. The company recently announced it added executives from Blizzard, PlayFirst, and PayPal to its management team, continuing the trend of growing its talent pool as it aggressively expands for its next operational phase—evolving and increasing its leadership in making rich and engaging social games. WonderHill is Kabam’s first acquisition, and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

USA, Redwood City, CA