Irvine-based Kurion Inc. has acquired a U.K. company that specializes in robotics and remote systems for handling hazardous materials.
Financial terms of the transaction for Abingdon, England-based Oxford Technologies Ltd. were undisclosed.
The buy will add more than 60 employees to Kurion’s Robotic Systems & Services team as well as a suite of technologies and a growing customer base throughout Europe.
The division has delivered and designed over 180 systems around the world, including technology used to investigate a damaged reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan.
Kurion also designs systems to deliver safe access to hazardous material sites, including Hanford in the U.S. and Sellafield in the U.K.
Oxford specializes in full life-cycle remote handling systems, complex plant assembly and radiation-hardened systems.
Oxford cofounder Alan Rolfe plans to retire from his leadership post after the acquisition but maintain a consultancy role. Matthew Cole, who heads Kurion’s robotics division, will relocate to the U.K. to oversee the company’s global remote systems operations.
Bernhard Haist, who served as engineering director for Oxford, is now director for Oxford Technologies team in the U.K. and reports to Cole.
Kurion, founded in 2008, is estimated to bring more than $100 million in annual revenue from longstanding contracts with Tokyo Electric Power Co. and others.
The company maintains a low profile in OC but has built a name for itself in the industry for its clean-up work of radioactive substances in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear crisis in March 2011 when a 9.0 magnitude earthquake jolted the country, unleashing a tsunami more than 100 miles wide that washed away coastal towns and killed more than 15,000 people.
