ORCHESTRA, A three-person Dublin software company founded less than a year ago, has been acquired by San Francisco-based Engine Yard in a cash and share deal.
Last October, Orchestra began developing a platform to make creating applications in the PHP programming language easier for developers. The company grew out of Echolibre, which provided development services to start-ups.
Orchestra’s platform for PHP development will complement Engine Yard’s existing services for programmers using the Ruby on Rails platform, said John Dillon, chief executive of the US firm.
Mr Dillon, whose previous roles include a stint as chief executive of Salesforce.com, said the deal would also give Engine Yard a base in Europe. “We have been looking at Dublin to do something in Europe,” said Mr Dillon, who made the decision to locate Salesforce.com’s European headquarters in the capital.
Neither side would say how much Engine Yard paid for the Irish firm but Orchestra co-founder Eamon Leonard said his company was “very happy” with the deal.
The remaining Echolibre staff will now transfer to Orchestra and employment should grow to “10-15 in the near future”, said Mr Leonard.
Engine Yard, which was founded in 2006, has received backing from venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and New Enterprise Associates, as well as online retailer Amazon.com. It uses Amazon’s cloud platform to deliver its service.
Mr Leonard said it had always been the intention to do something on an international scale with Orchestra and the deal with Engine Yard would help them achieve that.
The Orchestra team had travelled to San Francisco and Silicon Valley last April to demonstrate the platform to potential partners. “We started to talk to Engine Yard when we were starting to raise funds ourselves,” he said. “We saw the immediate benefits of bringing the two companies together.”
No decision has been made on whether to retain the Orchestra brand, said Mr Dillon. “It’s a great name because it really captures what they do. It’s bringing together all the different elements so they can make music together.”
Engine Yard employs 120 staff and its customers include MTV, Groupon and Simon Schuster.
