Computer-assisted data entry company Adaptive Solutions Inc has agreed to acquire Paris-based Mimetics SA, an optical character recognition company, and will issue 305,000 common shares and 200,000 warrants exercisable at $3 a share. Mimetics develops and markets high accuracy, high speed data entry recognition software for reading printed documents. Beaverton, Oregon-based Adaptive, which also acquired Eastman Kodak’s optical character recognition business last fall, says it’s interested in Mimetics’ neural-net based software, which can be used to train recognition systems to be faster and more accurate. It also hopes to increase its sales in Europe. Adaptive first took a stake in Mimetics two years ago (CI No 2,972), and at the time it reserved the option to buy the company within two years. Mimetics posted the equivalent of $1.2m in revenues last year. Adaptive may need to write-off some of its own in-house research and development. The deal is expected to be closed within a month.
