Bucks-based EPAM software engineering buys Boston-based Continuum design

EPAM Systems Inc., a Newtown, Bucks County-based, publicly-traded software engineering company with offices in 25 countries, says it has agreed to buy Boston-based Continuum, a design firm with additional studios in Italy, China and South Korea. Both companies serve large corporate clients. Continuum clients include large companies in the healthcare, financial services, hotel and consumer industries.

EPAM, which employs 26,000 (including 1,600 in the U.S.)  and reported sales of $1.5 billion last year, has made at least 10 acquisitions since 2012. The company has nearly quadrupled its staff; it employed around 7,000 in late 2012, after its initial public stock offering (IPO). The companies won't say what EPAM paid for Continuum.

The deal adds Continuum's Made Real Labs, locations where engineering teams can model "mechanical, electrical and robotics" prototypes for clients, to the company's own EPAM Garage design centers, said EPAM chief executive Arkadiy Dobkin in a statement.

The merger adds EPAM's "world-class innovation design and product development at scale" to Continuum's big corporate client base, added Continuum founder Gianfranco Zaccai.

Dobkin, a native of Belarus in the former Soviet Union, worked for SAP and Colgate-Palmolive after moving to the U.S. in 1991. He founded EPAM in the 1990s, and was one of the pioneers among American software company managers who have recruited engineers from former Communist nations.