Iona Technologies has made its first acquisition in a number of years, having purchased outright London-based software company C24. Iona declined to put a value on the all-cash acquisition.

C24 is a privately held company with 12 employees. Iona chief executive Peter Zotto said the deal was primarily about acquiring C24's technology and expertise in the financial services sector and that it would "not seriously diminish Iona's cash position".

Mr Zotto said C24 did "not have a lot of revenue at this stage" but that the purchase would be "accretive" within 12 months.

C24's technology will also be fully integrated with Iona's flagship Artix product line within the same timeframe.

"The opportunity already exists in 2007 to grow Artix revenues by 100 per cent if everything falls into place," said Mr Zotto. "This acquisition will help that."

C24's technology enables financial services companies to validate and transfer their data to the kind of services-oriented architecture facilitated by Artix.