First Derivatives, the Newry listed financial software and consultancy group, has acquired an American data analytics company in a deal that could be worth a total £13 million.

The Northern Ireland company will pay an initial £4.9 million (€6.69 million) for the Massachusetts-based software company Prelytix.

But the value of the overall deal could be in the region of £13 million (€17.7million).

Prelytix specialises in providing predictive analytics generated from billions of data points from real time advertising data to website traffic and social media.

Last month First Derivatives officially unveiled its expansion into the digital marketing sector with the launch of its Delta Marketing Cloud product.

It demonstrated the company’s intention to move beyond its core business.

Brian Conlon, the chief executive of the Newry company said the acquisition of Prelytix was next step of its plan to "target additional vertical markets".

“Digital marketing is one of a number of vertical markets challenged by rapid growth in data volumes.

“This acquisition creates a unique end to end technology marketing firm with industry leaders at the helm backed by a software platform and a team of data scientists.

“The acquisition of Prelytix follows our £15.3 million share placing earlier this month to accelerate opportunities in fast data,” Mr Conlon added.

He said the latest acquisition has the potential to generate “significant revenues” for the company.

Mike Kelly and Marc Laplante, co-founders of Prelytix believes its acquisition by First Derivatives will give provide an opportunity "to unlock" its potential.