UL, a glo­bal safe­ty sci­ence lea­der, today announ­ced the acqui­si­ti­on of Future­mark, the mar­ket lea­ding pro­vi­der of per­for­mance bench­mar­king soft­ware. Future­mark, a pri­va­te­ly held com­pa­ny based in Fin­land, deve­lo­ps the world’s most wide­ly used bench­marks for desk­top com­pu­ters, note­books, tablets and smart phones.

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NORTHBROOK, Ill. – Novem­ber 3, 2014– UL, a glo­bal safe­ty sci­ence lea­der, today announ­ced the acqui­si­ti­on of Future­mark, the mar­ket lea­ding pro­vi­der of per­for­mance bench­mar­king soft­ware. Future­mark, a pri­va­te­ly held com­pa­ny based in Fin­land, deve­lo­ps the world’s most wide­ly used bench­marks for desk­top com­pu­ters, note­books, tablets and smart pho­nes. The acqui­si­ti­on marks UL’s ent­ry into the soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment indus­try, a stra­te­gic impe­ra­ti­ve for the com­pa­ny to help meet the gro­wing demand for per­for­mance data.

“Embedded soft­ware is now an important part of pro­duct design. With an increased focus on mobi­li­ty, we see more and more pro­ducts being con­nec­ted, making the Inter­net of Things a rea­li­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, soft­ware qua­li­ty is a signi­fi­cant dri­ver of pro­duct safe­ty and per­for­mance; and we belie­ve that bench­mar­king is an important way to help our cus­to­mers to impro­ve the per­for­mance of their pro­ducts,” said Ste­phen Kirk, VP and GM of UL Con­su­mer Tech­no­lo­gy Divi­si­on. “This acqui­si­ti­on pro­vi­des us with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to build a new busi­ness line in test­ing a wide varie­ty of tech­no­lo­gi­cal devices so they offer the per­for­mance, safe­ty and pri­va­cy that con­su­mers expect.”

Mar­ket demand for bench­mar­king ser­vices is dri­ven by inten­se glo­bal com­pe­ti­ti­on to impro­ve pro­duct per­for­mance and com­pe­ti­ti­ve dif­fe­ren­tia­ti­on. In addi­ti­on, empowered users are see­king more data to assess new pro­ducts during purcha­se consideration.

Future­mark has been deve­lo­ping indus­try stan­dard bench­marks sin­ce 1997. Today, Future­mark recei­ves a new bench­mark result every four seconds on average.

UL plans to increase invest­ment in Futuremark’s pro­duct deve­lo­p­ment, expan­ding the ran­ge and depth of the company’s bench­mark offe­ring. In addi­ti­on, Future­mark will tap UL’s glo­bal sca­le and resour­ces to expand into Asia and deve­lop new mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties for its pro­ducts and services.

“In recent years, we’ve expan­ded on to new plat­forms, our soft­ware has been adopted by the Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on and natio­nal govern­ments, and we’ve wel­co­med more of the world’s lea­ding tech­no­lo­gy com­pa­nies into our Bench­mark Deve­lo­p­ment Pro­gram,” said Juk­ka Mäki­nen, CEO, Future­mark. “We’ve accom­plished a lot on our own, but with UL, we’re in an even bet­ter posi­ti­on to achie­ve our goals.”

Futuremark’s focus on crea­ting out­stan­ding bench­marks will con­ti­nue with UL’s sup­port and invest­ment. Futuremark’s 39 employees, inclu­ding CEO Juk­ka Mäki­nen, will join UL and remain with the company.

“Both UL and Future­mark have a long­stan­ding tra­di­ti­on of neu­tra­li­ty and inde­pen­dence,” added Kirk. “I think this com­mon cul­tu­ral trait makes the two com­pa­nies a gre­at fit for each other, our employees and our customers.”

The tran­sac­tion clo­sed on Octo­ber 31, 2014.

About UL

UL is a pre­mier glo­bal inde­pen­dent safe­ty sci­ence com­pa­ny that has cham­pio­ned pro­gress for 120 years. Its more than 10,000 pro­fes­sio­nals are gui­ded by the UL mis­si­on to pro­mo­te safe working and living envi­ron­ments for all peo­p­le. UL uses rese­arch and stan­dards to con­ti­nu­al­ly advan­ce and meet ever-evol­ving safe­ty needs. We part­ner with busi­nesses, manu­fac­tu­r­ers, trade asso­cia­ti­ons and inter­na­tio­nal regu­la­to­ry aut­ho­ri­ties to bring solu­ti­ons to a more com­plex glo­bal sup­p­ly chain. For more infor­ma­ti­on about our cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­on, test­ing, inspec­tion, advi­so­ry and edu­ca­ti­on ser­vices, visit http://www.UL.com.

About Future­mark

Future­mark deve­lo­ps the most aut­ho­ri­ta­ti­ve and wide­ly-used per­for­mance bench­mar­king soft­ware in the indus­try for desk­top com­pu­ters, note­books, tablets, smart pho­nes and brow­sers. Its bench­marks enable peo­p­le to mea­su­re and compa­re the per­for­mance of the hard­ware and devices they depend on every day. Future­mark works in coope­ra­ti­on with many of the world’s lea­ding tech­no­lo­gy com­pa­nies to deve­lop indus­try stan­dard bench­marks that are rele­vant, accu­ra­te and impar­ti­al. It main­ta­ins the world’s lar­gest and most com­pre­hen­si­ve hard­ware per­for­mance data­ba­se, using the results sub­mit­ted by mil­li­ons of users to help con­su­mers make infor­med purcha­sing decis­i­ons. Futuremark’s head­quar­ters are in Fin­land, just out­side the capi­tal, Hel­sin­ki. For more infor­ma­ti­on, plea­se visit, http://www.futuremark.com.