Social gaming company Gree acquired App Ant Studios, a San Francisco-based development company, to “expand its portfolio of unique game content for users worldwide”.

In a statement, the Japan-based company said that the deal will help it “reach its goal of having one billion users worldwide as it expands its robust portfolio of games on Gree Platform”.

App Ant worked with Gree earlier this year, to develop the Dino Life game for Android. Its staff will now join Gree’s existing team in the city, including App Ant’s four founders, who will take on “leadership roles within the Game Development and Engineering teams”.

Naoki Aoyagi, CEO of Gree International, said: "With our constantly growing and evolving mobile game market, having such exceptional talent on board to build great experiences for the latest hardware is a huge priority for us."