Cliff Design & Development AB, one of Sweden's leading industrial design company, was today fully acquired by the Swedish holding company Design Continum AB. Design Continum also today announced the acquisition of Opticore, the leading software supplier for high-end design visualisations.

Cliff & Opticore will continue to be run as independent companies; however intra group collaboration will provide comprehensive design process coverage.

"For Cliff this is very satisfying", says Patrik Sjöstrand Managing Director at Cliff. "The whole business idea for Cliff is to use the best process for each given moment, therefore we already offer both physical models for design evaluation as well as renderings and animations. The possibilities in the new group will make both Cliff and Opticore even more competitive on the market. Cliff's recent start enter into new geographical markets will get good a push forward."

Furthermore, the owner of Design Continum also is the main owner for Mentice, the largest global supplier of virtual reality (VR) based applications within the field of medicine, with special attention to endovascular and cardiac surgery.

Opticore, CLIFF and Mentice together, currently employ some 110 people. This will immediately create one of the largest global groups focusing on VR and simulation solutions.

About Cliff
CLIFF is a leading Swedish provider of services for the entire the design process with the automotive industry as well as other industries where industrial design is a key factor. The competences of CLIFF cover Product design, Prototype production and 3D-Illustrations/Visualisations. With more than 15 years in business, providing services in its discipline in Sweden as well as to other parts of the world, CLIFF have developed its skills and services, being able to deliver cost effective services at the appropriate quality for demanding customers. For more information, please visit http://www.cliffdesign.com/

About Opticore
Opticore is the world's leading developer, and the market leader in number of customers and seats in production, for 3D real-time software for interactive product visualization. Leading manufacturing companies such as Audi, Ford, Volvo, SAAB, Nokia Mobile, Honda, Daihatsu, and Mitsubishi and many more are successfully using Opticore software based applications in automotive- and industrial design development. Opticore is a privately held company with its corporate headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, and subsidiaries in Detroit, USA and Tokyo, Japan. Opticore has worldwide distribution via a network of resellers and sales offices located in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.opticore.com/

About Mentice
Mentice is the leading supplier of virtual reality (VR) based applications within the field of medicine, with special attention to the area of minimally invasive surgery. The company has complete product portfolios in the areas of endo-vascular and cardiovascular intervention, laparoscopy and arthroscopy. Mentice provide improved patient safety with close to 500 installations world wide, over 100 validation studies and more than 30 issued and pending patents. Mentice provides complete turnkey solutions such as Procedicus VISTTM and Procedicus MISTTM - including hardware, software and technical support - from entry-skills acquisition to high-fidelity procedural training. With the Procedicus? products, Mentice focuses on the following minimally invasive surgery areas: endovascular intervention, laparoscopy and arthroscopy. The company has offices in USA ( Chicago and San Diego ), Europe (Gothenburg, Lausanne/Morges), Malaysia , and Australia . For more information, please visit http://www.mentice.com