mBlox buys a LaNetro Zed Asian unit

mBlox has acquired LaNetro Zed's subsidiary technical center in Singapore for an undisclosed sum. The deal sees LaNetro Zed, which recently announced its intent to launch an IPO, maintaining ownership of all its content and marketing operations, but the company will use mBlox's mobile transaction network as its preferred mobile-billing infrastructure. The deal adds 11 Singaporean-based employees to mBlox's payroll, and the new unit will be called mBlox Asia Pacific. 

Currently the deal only encompasses LaNetro Zed's direct premium SMS connections for carriers in Malaysia and the Philippines; however, mBlox's chairman Andrew Budd told me the deal marks the company's first foothold in Asia--they're looking to expand operations in the region. "It was a complex deal to negotiate," Budd said. " Which was inevitable because we are taking an important part of what was once an integrated operation and providing it as an outsourced operation for them."

For more on mBlox's acquisition of LaNetro Zed's Singaporean unit:
- take a look at this press release