Coin Metrics was sold by its co-founders, Ian Daintith and Richard Adams, for £685,000. Of this sum, more than £600,000 was paid in cash, with the balance satisfied through the issue of nearly 37,000 ordinary shares of 10p each.

Brulines has the option of buying the remaining shares in the business depending on its performance over the next four years.

The acquirer’s chief executive, James Dickson, said the deal is a strategic one. It also strengthens Brulines’ existing Machine Insite business, which provides gaming machine data management and consultancy services to operators within the pub, club and leisure markets.

Brulines employs more than 174 people and provides its services to more than 18,000 pubs in the UK, which use its technology to capture a range of information about their business. The Stockton-on-Tees-based company made an operating profit of £2.7 million from a turnover of £12 million in the year to April 2006.

Milton Keynes-based Coin Metrics has sold more than 4,000 units of its main product, Site Guardian, to 100 premises across the UK. In the year to April 2007, Coin Metrics generated unaudited pre-tax profits of £149,000, including directors’ remuneration, from a turnover of £398,000.